🤯 INCRÍVEL: 45 Of The Most Chilling “In The Woods” Encounters That Left People Questioning Reality 😲
This one is my brother’s story:
He studied biology and ecology in college. for one of his courses, they did a wolf survey in the northwoods of Wisconsin. what this basically entailed was going out in the middle of night, howling like a wolf, and then recording how many distinct wolf howls responded, along with their rough location.
they were having a pretty good night, getting lots of responses. on one of their last stops, they got a pack to really start singing. lots of back and forth howling. then, the wolves just stopped responding. the students kept howling, hoping for a response, but nothing.
Finally, they heard one howl, much, much closer than the others had been, that was suddenly cut off by a yelp, like the wolf howling had been hurt.
the professor very quickly rushed all the students back into the van and they all got out of there. when the students asked the prof. why they were leaving so quickly, he explained that the wolves thought the students were a rival pack, and were most likely trying to sneak up and circle the group to investigate/ possibly attack. the lone howl was most likely a young wolf responding out of reflex, and the yelp was another wolf biting him to shut him up.
Heard the sound of twigs snapping off in the woods at night, sometimes quietly and sometimes violently. Thought there was a wounded animal or something stomping through the brush. Went looking for it everywhere, but the closer we’d get the farther away it sounded. We were pretty terrified.
We were also baked and it turned out we were chasing the sound of the campfire crackling.
It was winter. I was walking my beagle, Rowdy, through a nature preserve. Kishwaukee River on my left and deep woods of a nature preserve on my right. It was cold and clear, snow on the ground, with the footsteps of others who use the trail packed and frozen. Then I came upon a spine.
It was right in the middle of the trail. I stopped and clicked the button on Rowdy’s leash to keep him from running up to it. There was a spine and pelvis just laying there.
I remember the thoughts flashing through my head. “Is that a spine? That’s a spine. Real? Yeah they don’t put tendons on fake ones. No blood in the snow. It didn’t happen here. Coyotes and vultures must have been at it. Is it human? Right length, pelvis looks wrong. Too narrow. Deer? Gotta be. That makes sense.”.
I walked around it and kept going. The trail looped and it was shorter to keep going. About 20 yards up the trail I found the leg. “That’s a femur and lower leg… And the leg has a hoof. Okay that was a deer.” And I let out the biggest sigh of relief.
My ex girlfriend and I (both female) had just set up our site, we got the tent up, fire started and was just chilling. When out of nowhere this truck pulled into our spot and got out of the car and walked right up to our site. Any seasoned camper knows that you do NOT enter someone’s site without their permission so that was the first red flag. He had a beer in his hand and was slurring his words, asking us where we’re from and if we’ve ever been here before and if it was just us two. As he was saying this he was inching his way closer and closer to us. I gave me ex a look and she went and grabbed the pepper spray out of the tent, as I had my hand on my knife on my belt. It got quiet and the first thing I thought to say was “Alright babe let’s go down to my grandmas house” (she lives about two miles down the road) as soon as I said that he said have a good day and left. As soon as he left we packed up our things and went home. I’ll always trust my instincts.
As a kid, my grandparents would take my brother and I camping in the absolute middle of nowhere in Wyoming. They would stay in the tent trailer while my brother is slept in a tent. One night, I got up top go pee and stepped outside. There was tons of light from the moon and stars (absolutely zero light pollution…) and I just saw thousands of eyes staring at me. We were camped in a field and were surrounded by rabbits as far as I could see in every direction. It was too many rabbits.
Ooooh I have a story for this!! I’d like to caveat first by saying this is 100% true and it gives me goosebumps still.
A few years ago I went on a solo backpacking trip in June in the eastern US. I only planned to hike up a trail, camp 1 night, and hike back down the next day. I got to the turn around point around 1700 and set up camp. My tent was a small, 1-man tent that was basically a rectangular bivvy bag with 2 tent poles to raise it off your face (snugpack stratosphere if you wanna look it up). About 5 meters away I built a fire ring, started a fire, set up a chair and ate a mountain house meal. While the sun set I poured my glass of scotch and started reading a book. Just before the sun dipped below the horizon, I heard a huge crash in the woods.
Here, I’d like to point out I am a very experienced backpacker, and have spent many nights alone in the woods. Trees falling or big animals stomping through the woods is a common sound. That is not what this was. It sounded like someone crashed a truck into a tree or something.
Regardless, I didn’t think too much of it though I did get up to investigate and make sure I didn’t attract any bears or big cats with my meal. Finding nothing, I returned to my camp and sat down.
The next thing I know, I suddenly open my eyes and it is pitch dark. My fire is nothing but coals, my half drank cup of scotch is nearly placed on a rock near the fire, and I am sat in my chair with arms crossed and my book neatly layed over my chest, closed. I check my watch and it’s 0300 on the dot. I can’t find my headlamp, lighter, or my phone, so I get up and use my watch backlight to go to my tent. When I find it, the stakes at the feet side of the tent have been VIOLENTLY ripped out of the ground causing grapefruit-sized craters. My tent has also been rolled up onto itself and is resting on the head side in a pile. I unroll and unzip the tent to find my phone and headlamp stuffed into the foot of my sleeping bag (I know that I had my headlamp around my neck and was actively texting my wife on my phone before I heard the crash. I even used my headlamp to look into more shaded spots in the trees). When I get my headlamp out and on, I immediately investigate the area and find that absolutely nothing else has been disturbed.
I didn’t sleep that night. I lit the biggest fire I could, turned my phone flashlight on and kept it face up shining into the sky and kept my headlamp on and on my head. I was absolutely terrified. I hiked out at first light and drove straight home.
To this day I have no idea what happened. But, even typing this, I can feel that feeling of abject terror. I have experienced combat in Afghanistan, have feared for my own life many times, and have never, ever felt the kind of fear I felt that night.
When I stayed with my friend at her grandmas I found an old abandoned cabin that I deemed my spot, her grandmas house was the party house (hella people, drinking, smoking) so when I got tired of everybody I’d go to my cabin and chill by myself. She knew this.
One evening I was kinda bored and wanted to go to my spot, (maybe a 15 minute walk) so I started heading that way. The area the cabin was in is wooded and you cannot see it from the road, it’s kind of deep in the woods.
As I walked up to the cabin and could see it, it felt like the life got drained out of me, I don’t even know how to explain how I felt in this moment but something was telling me to get the hell out of there, so I did and decided to just walk along the road and back.
As I’m walking back from around a bend, I see my friend leaving from the area of the cabin and I caught up to her and when I said wsp she asked me “Why didn’t you come out the cabin when I called your name?” I was super confused because I had not even been in the cabin. I told her this and she laughed and thought I was messing with her, she told me “No? You were definitely in that cabin I saw you” and kind of nervously looked at me to confirm for her.
I shook my head and pulled out my phone and showed her a picture I had taken of some lizards less than 10 minutes before this happened, it was dated and time stamped and clearly I was NEVER in that cabin 😬. She went completely pale and said we needed to go now. Got the hell away from that place and I’ve never went back. To this day she swears she saw me in there but it was literally impossible.
Not my story, but comes from a long trusted friend.
He grew up in the woods of Kentucky. He said one day he and his cousin were playing out in the forest and making their way toward a stream they knew about.
He said they were about halfway there or so when they stumbled on a clearing with a camp in it. He said it was a primitive shelter made out of hides with furs inside of it to sleep on, a small fire, and (oddly enough) pumpkins and squash sitting around.
He said they stopped at the edge of the clearing, and his cousin wanted to go look, but he said it felt off, and since no one was around, he was worried the owner would come back and they would get caught. So they went around the clearing and continued to the stream.
They played awhile at the stream, and on the way back decided to see if they could see if the owner of the camp had come back. He said they snuck up on it and everything was rotten, in a literal sense. The hide shelter and furs inside of it were matted and decayed, the fire was long cold, and the pumpkins and squash were mouldy and caved in. He said they didn’t enter the clearing, and went home.
They told his grandpa what they saw, and of course he brushed it off as lies, so nothing ever came of it and they never saw that camp or anything like it ever again.
I was camping with a group of army cadets in a remote area, no facilities. Middle of the night I had to get up to relieve myself and walked into the bush a ways. I could see a faint human-sized glow in front of me and thought WTH? I kept walking gingerly and discovered a rotting stump. Turns out there’s a bioluminescent fungus that lives on rotting stumps.
Years ago, I went backpacking with a friend who was waaay more of a “hardcore” backpacker than me (read: he bragged all the way up the mountain how he backpacks here every year, and knows “exactly” what to do). We hiked up into Desolation Wilderness (California’s Sierra Nevada mountains), and did about twice the distance on the first day than I’d expected. My experienced friend told me he would bring all of the essential backpacking gear, and that all I needed to bring was my own sleeping bag and food. Great.
We set up camp just after dusk, and I hurt ALL over, from the grueling hike. My friend wanted to sleep without a tent (I guess it added weight, and he liked sleeping under the stars), so I spread my own camp out on a flat piece of ground. Part of my “essential gear” was a flask of whiskey, so I enjoyed most of that as my friend set up his part of camp.
Now – this area is “bear country,” and so I asked where his bear bin was, so I could put my own food and toothpaste inside before we tied it up in a tree. He replied, “Oh, I don’t believe in bear bins. Just put your food down by your feet in your sleeping bag, and if an animal comes in the night, run!” Great. Not very comforting! So (now drunk) me went to bed with my food at my feet. But – being pretty drunk, I also apparently started snoring LOUDLY. So when my friend shook me awake to stop snoring an hour later, I screamed, and ran up the mountain. The “creepy” part was just drunk me and what turned out to be an inexperienced friend, making fools of ourselves.
Was biking with a buddy on a local trail a few years ago, got split and tried catching up. Crested a small hill, thought I saw my buddy ahead, except he was going off the trail, further up a hill before disappearing behind a tree. When I found him later, he had no idea what I was talking about. Then, when we were heading back, we came across some kind of animal skull left out in the path that hadn’t been there 30 minutes ago, and had flies and maggots in it. We got the hell out of there real fast.
A long time ago, I was with a scout troop in the woods. Two scouts went off to wonder around while we stayed by the fire.
They come running back terrified that they had seen a lady with no legs and a dog all ghosty etc etc. Everyone thought they were making it up to scare the others so thought nothing of it.
The next day, we were chatting with the warden of the park and mentioned that some scouts said they seen a ghost. He went white and said ‘a lady, no legs, have a dog with her?’
Suffice to say no one wondered off that night.
Backpacking with a buddy; we night hiked in the dark for the first few miles into the wilderness & then set up camp. We both missed that the campsite was just 40 yards or so from an old logging road.
Middle of the night, an old F-250 truck came cranking down the road, high-beams on and absolutely struggling as it was back firing — and just as we were waking up & getting the tent opened, the truck stalled out, as it let out a big engine sigh with it’s headlights shining on our tent.
Couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes before we got out of the tent, started shouting at the truck to see if they needed help, and walked on over to it — but as we got close enough, we realized -no one- was in or driving the truck.
Straight up biggest heart drop moment of my life. We kinda just shouted into the darkness as we walked up the logging road for a bit – but after not finding a trace of anyone – we decided to just pack up and get out of there. Walked back out to our car and canceled the rest of the backpacking trip lol.
I was driving in Colorado through the middle of nowhere in the heavy snow when we saw something in the road. As we were driving closer we noticed it was a body. A man was lying in the road, flat on his back! I was terrified, like I could not process it. We were out in the middle of nowhere. It was me and my family(two very young kids) we freaked out and I got a bad feeling and said, “do not stop!” We drove past him and HE STOOD RIGHT UP and stared at us. I’m not sure what sinister thing he was up to, but we were not going to find out. It was terrifying and we drove in silence for a good 30 minutes after.
Buddy of mine still tells this story. I’ve hiked with him many times before, but I wasn’t there this particular night. My friend is very solemn big guy and wouldn’t make something like this up. He’s an outdoorsman and alone in the woods all the time (hiking, fishing, etc). He said he went for a night hike in the Catskills. We have hiked the trail he was on several times before, usually at night. At the summit is a beautiful rock ledge lookout that makes for the best sunrises. He said he got to the top very early in the morning in mid-September hoping to catch sunrise with the foliage starting to turn. Before the sun came up he heard cracking of branches near him. He got out his flashlight and scanned the edge of the trees that lined the drop off. He noticed reflective yellow shining back at him between some of the trees. When he got a better look he said he saw a full grown man staring at him wearing a yellow rain jacket and hat (like the one Georgie wears in “IT”.) Scared the hell out of him and he does not scare easy. He ran back down the mountain that night. Crazy part is it was a warm night and no rain, not even a chance of precipitation in the forecast and he was about 4 miles into the woods with no one else around.
Used to live in a city that had a massive wooded park on the northern half of it that was pretty secluded in some areas. Well one day I drive up there early in the AM to take my dog for a walk down this hiking trail we always hit. We get out and I let her loose for maybe 5 min, not far at all, and we come right up on a fresh deer carcass, ripped clean open and still steaming. I noticed right at that moment that all of the birds were silent and something was not feeling right. I picked my dog up and sprinted back to my car right as I realized that it was a mountain lions breakfast and that lion was right there staring at us in the tall grass. Theyll absolutely take you on and follow you too, ive never been so scared in my life.
I LOVE the forest. Solo frolicking in the woods is my happy place. But it has been ruined for me unfortunately.
Last year I was walking in the little forest near my house, I’d just entered the path (it’s behind a school so it’s like, a path through an open field that just continues into the forest) and about 10 meters into the forest there was a man hiding behind a tree who once I spotted him, picked up a rock about the size of a baseball and threw it in my direction. Immediately I backed out (literally walked backwards) of the forest and ran home. (I am a woman, and was 22 when this happened)
I still think about it on a regular basis, and all I can think of is what would have happened had it been further into the forest and not at the entrance, I wonder if perhaps he was with someone else and it was a signal of some kind, did he mean to hit me with the rock and missed, or did he miss on purpose?
I have not been able enter the forest alone since and it makes me so mad.
I was staying in Fairlee VT with my girlfriend at the times family for a summer reunion of theirs. Fairlee has pretty close proximity to the Appalachian Mountains. It was a rainy night around 3AM and I wanted to smoke a cigarette. They don’t allow smoking in their lake cabin so to be respectful I stepped on to my girlfriends bedroom balcony area. I didn’t want to walk all the way downstairs and smoke on the porch, besides the rain calmed down enough it was more of a drizzle at that hour.
Everyone on the property, girlfriend, her mom and aunt, we’re already asleep at this hour. Figured I could sneak a smoke on the balcony just fine.
I should add it was very dark around their cabin. The moonlight hits the lake but the wooded area blocks out much of the moonlight, creating a pretty pitch black darkness around their cabin. You couldn’t see more than maybe 20ft from their cabins exterior lights.
I stepped out to the balcony cigarette in mouth and had trouble sparking my lighter. The third try it lit up and as I was taking that first drag to light it I heard something call my name in the dark woods nearby.
“Hey… Chris”
The way it sounded was a fractured almost mechanical like voice. It didn’t sound human, more like something imitating human speech.
“HeY CHriS” like it put emphasis on the wrong letters.
My hair on my neck stood up, goosebumps, fear washing over me.
Instant fight or flight.
The cigarette dropped out of my mouth and I was back inside in a New York second. Woke my girlfriend up because I was scared. We went out to the balcony with a flashlight to look around the surrounding area but didn’t see anything.
It took me a few hours before I was able to sleep. I just laid there heart racing, shaking in the bed for a solid hour. I still had like 3 more nights at that cabin before our trip was over. Never been back and probably never will go back.
Pretty sure it was a skin walker or something, which I had never really believed in until that night.
I was primitive camping deep in a national forest. I woke up about 1:30 am and heard an old pickup on the two-track dirt road about 150 yards away. Snuck out of my tent, which was obscured from the road, and crept up where I could see, maybe 100 yards. They were digging by lantern light.
Spent the rest of the night at the ready, but they finished their digging project and eventually left.
Noped out of there at daylight.
I was woken up by my wife screaming…
Laying just outside the tent walls was a growling kangaroo eveytime one us moved the MF would growl. The worst part was we had no idea what it was at first. I DIDNT EVEN KNOW KANGAROOS MADE NOISE LIKE THAT.
No joke, we were hiking in winter in a regional park and quite a ways out from the nearest town on Vancouver Island, but the trails we were on were adjacent to department of national defense training grounds. Bushwhacked on an old abandoned trail (this is important) that we knew from the map would cross over into the restricted grounds, but would cross a safe trail at an open area ahead and we would divert and keep going without any concerns. No snow anywhere but it was cooooold, and we were looking forward to settling down for a late lunch at the crossroads.
Were coming up the last rise before heading down to the trail crossing when we heard literal screaming ahead and my partner and I just froze. Kind of peeped around a large tree and there was a man maybe 30 feet away, wearing camo pants but shirtless, with his upper body painted in silver and green stripes. His face was painted completely black, and he was WIELDING A SPEAR, jumping around and stabbing the air, the plants, the trees, imaginary demons Idontknowwhat, while howling and screaming like he was on fire.
I’ve never seen anything like that before or since. We were utterly terrified that this psychotic demon soldier would notice us and think we were his prey, and being on an abandoned trail meant we’d probably never be found if he did hurt us. We just got the hell out of there as quietly as we could, backtracked and didn’t stop until we got back to the starting point. My poor partner was shaking the whole time thinking this guy was stalking us, she’d been the one to suggest that trail and we didn’t try it again for a full 10 years… and we were still cautious when we got to the same area. I don’t know what that maniac was on, but it was definitely potent.
Buddy of mine and I were camping overnight in the Mojave near Joshua Tree national Park. We were sitting around our campfire talking and just a few feet away from us and incredibly clear and bright we heard the beautiful tinkling of a glass bell, tinkle tinkle tinkle! It’s a very distinct sound and does not sound like anything natural, like even if there had been some broken glass settling or something, no.
I have never believed in faeries or stuff like that, but that sound is burnt into both of our brains, and neither of us will ever forget it. But it also sounded friendly and we had an amazing night there, so we are cool with the little folk I guess.
If I ever go back to that spot, I’m leaving them food and beer.
During a camping trip with friends years ago we witnessed something we can’t explain. I’ll tell the short story as this may not get viewed and I’m lazy. I’ll tell it more if people are interested.
We were sitting around the fire deep in the forest off a logging road in British Columbia. We weren’t drinking or smoking as it was a dry trip for a friend. I noticed my good friend go silent and perk up like he was listening. He told us to shut up and listen. The forest was quiet like zero noise. Before there was frogs, and birds and regular forest sounds. He said something like “guys there could be a cougar or bear around. The forest is silent. We might want to move to the cars.” Before anyone could react in the far tree line maybe 100 feet away we saw something that completely put all of us in shock.
It was a small red orb, glowing like fire producing its own light going between the trees. We just watched it flabbergasted. It was clearly passing behind and in front of trees. It lasted maybe 20 seconds then slowly faded. After about 10 seconds the forest sounds resumed. We all just sat there like what is that. We took a very quick look and no road or anything. It couldn’t have been cars or whatever. It freaked us out so much we left and found a campsite with people and stayed there. We still bring it up from time to time when we get together. It gave me nightmares for weeks after. No clue what it could be. It’s 50/50 people believe it when we talk about it.
A couple additional points before more. We are all experienced campers and have done these trips for years. We’ve heard weird sounds, bright flashes in the sky and encountered some sketchy people out in the bush before. Nothing unexplained but just wild stuff so we know how to react and think in these situations.
The friend who noticed the lack of sound first is in the bush almost 6 months out of the year as he does forestry for work so he knows the woods more than anyone. He was terrified to go back to work for months after this experience. He never wanted to talk about it or mention it as he said it made his hair stand up.
So more about the light experience. When I say the forest was quiet I mean completely quiet. I could hear the fire crackle lightly but that was it. It was like the air was sucked out of the forest itself. I could hear my heart beating. To go from so much sound to nothing instantly kicked my fight or flight in. It was primal, something in the back of my head was like this is a bad situation. Then seeing that red light, it flickered and shined like a glass ball about the size of a beach ball filled with fire. It was too far way to see clearly but that’s what it was like. Not a light shining. It produced its own light, a faint glow passed onto the trees as it passed. It was travelling about walking speed in between the trees. It was a heavy bushed area so you’d hear someone walking through.
Once my eyes locked onto it my stomach turned, I felt fear like I never experienced. It was like my brain was trying to figure it out but couldn’t. Once it faded and the forest sounds returned everything in my body said RUN RUN RUN. We barely said anything to each other as we all got up.
We exchanged a few like what the hell was that? Did you see that? We all confirmed what we saw. There was 6 of us. We decided to get a closer look I guess out of the hopes there would be an explanation. There wasn’t. We couldn’t explain it. That made it worse. We left and found a paid campsite about 20–30 mins away. It was probably 1 am?
In the morning the owner came by and touched base with us (people don’t usually show up that late). We explained what happened sort of jokingly as it just seemed so strange. Her face went stone. She explained that the forest we were in is extremely old growth. Which makes sense my province has some of the oldest forests still standing in the world. She said it’s not uncommon to hear stories like that. Asked a bunch of questions then said it could be something aboriginal, evil spirits or something. I have no idea what or why but it happened and idk what we saw but it was there. We have on multiple occasions talked about it. When ever we do I get nightmares. Even just talking about this and writing this out gives me the creeps.
Algonquin park. Mid 90’s. I was a camp counselor (19yrs old) on an 8 day canoe trip with my campers. All kids, 13-14yo. We set up camp on Burnt Island Lake for the night. Make a fire, have dinner and clean up. Once all the campers are in bed I go down to the water to smoke a joint with my JC (Junior Counselor). After about twenty minutes a flashlight spots on us about 50-100yds out on the lake for a few seconds. Jokingly I flash my torch back for a few seconds but really can’t see anything.
A few minutes go by and the light on the lake turns back on us, except it’s closer this time. A lot closer. I immediately turn my light back at it. They kind of cancel each other out… But I think I can make out a silhouette of a lone man in a canoe. I say “hello??” No answer. I get chills every time I tell this.
The light stays on us and keeps getting closer. Almost like 15-20 feet from shore. I tell my JC to go get the hatchet we have for chopping wood. He’s back in seconds as the canoe slowly drifts by us. I make a point to shine the light on the hatchet in my hand. The canoe just keeps shining on is until it rounds the bend.
I barely slept that night with the hatchet in my hand while keeping the fire going. Nothing happens that night.
About 6 weeks later, my parents come up from Valley Forge to pick me up. On our way out of the park we stop at the portage store for some snacks and sodas. As I’m paying for the grub, I see a news paper clipping on the cork board about four people missing from the park last seen on Burnt Island Lake.
That was my last summer at camp. But, I’m planning a canoe trip with my girlfriend soon.
If you’ve lived in the mountains long, you’ve had that feeling where the woods tell you to get the hell out. It’s like that lull in conversation when a room goes silent but heavier.
A job I had at 18 was basically me ripping around the woods on an ATV all day fixing equipment in the middle of nowhere.
I stopped for lunch, and as I’m eating I hear a bunch of puppies yelping very VERY close to me. Except I’m nowhere, so I know it wasn’t the man’s best friend type of pups.
I’ve never taken off so fast in my life. Didn’t secure my equipment or anything, just blasted. If I could hear them, then I KNEW mama wolf was somewhere close and watching me.
A group of friends and I did a 4 day hike through Robbers Roost in southern Utah. It is an area known for being extremely desolate. This was a hard hike, you had to rappel into slot canyons to get to this area.
We were about 20+ miles into the hike and in the middle of nowhere. A middle aged guy covered in tattoos that spoke almost no English popped out from behind a sand dune. He asked us for water. We offered to help him get out of the area since there is no civilization near that place. He refused.
Not necessarily super creepy cause I don’t think he meant us any harm but there is no good answer to why somebody is out in the middle of literally nowhere without any gear or water and refuses help when offered.
I’m not really a believer in supernatural and I still get freaked out hearing rustling when sleeping along in the woods, but all of that is just critters or the wind.
BUT, there is a woods around here that just has an odd, slow, lonely vibe around here. It’s probably all in my head or maybe there’s like some kind of weird stone off gassing something that messes with your head a little bit or maybe it’s ghosts, I don’t know. But every once in a while I’ll do a little hike around and I feel like I’m much more isolated and away from civilization than I actually am but still being watched and have this weird sad unease. I never get this feeling anywhere else and it’s a pretty small woods that you can often see a pretty busy road and some homes from.
There is some violent history in these woods, there was a battle between native indians and an English garrison here in the 17th century where the natives basically besieged a group of soldiers for days and tried to burn and smoke them out, but ultimately suffered too many casualties and fled. There’s still a couple of stone basements from those garrisons left. There’s also an old colonial overgrown road where people and stagecoaches used to get mugged by thugs. This was also farming and grazing land and there are old stone walls lining ancient property lines when the area was basically deforested to make way for Merino sheep in like the 19th century.
I don’t know, some days it’s nice and pleasant. Some days you feel like you’re a bizarre dark, woods far, far away from anything living and there’s things watching and whispering and time is slowed down. It’s weird.
For some reason I decided to go out on the 4 wheeler from my mother’s house on Christmas day. It was below freezing and fresh snow on the ground. About a mile into the woods I parked. above the idle of the motor I heard someone yelling for help. Up a steep incline was an elderly woman screaming from her very rustic cabin in the woods. More like a shack. She said she was freezing and couldn’t get the wood to burn in her wood stove. She had been left there by a family member who said they were coming back. I guess they never came back. Or at least that was the story. She was too frail to carry her belongings out and asked me to come inside her shack to grab some stuff. I had seen too many movies to go inside and I refused. I already had a weird gut feeling something was very strange about the whole situation since she was clearly uninjured and screaming in the woods for anyone passing by on Christmas day no less. Anyway I hauled her out of there and back to my mother’s house. The ambulance and sheriff showed up not long after. She initially refused the ambulance. A few months later the sheriff’s department wanted to give me an award for saving someone’s life. After I had my picture taken with the sheriff, he told me he learned more about the woman and that it wasn’t good. She had been apparently in and out of the clink in my neighboring state and was now living among the homeless at a shelter in my state. We looked her up later and she was a registered offender against children. I was like GREAT.
Having a bobcat scream about 10 yards from my tent in the middle of the night which made the donkey in the field jump over our tent. It was quite a night. I was about 10. If you’ve never heard a bobcat scream – you’re lucky.
Picture this, you’re 13 year old and you’re supposed to be camping next to your neighbor’s pond with your friend. But what you are actually doing is waiting for his parents to go to sleep so they don’t see us sneak out so we can walk 5 miles into town on the railroad track to try and hang out with all the cool kids who live in town. Of course there was a new moon, so it’s almost pitch black outside. This was the 1980’s so there were no smartphones and we had one cheap flashlight between us.
We are crossing over a railroad trestle where we can just make out the railroad ties in front of us, but nothing else. We are almost to the middle of the bridge when a pack of something started howling right below us. There had to be at least 20 of them and they all started howling at about the same time. I’m talking zero to deafening in just a few seconds. In hind sight, it was probably a pack of coyotes, but at the time you could not have convinced me that it wasn’t wolves.
When the howling started I was thinking that staying on the bridge the rest of the night was a really good idea, but I could just hear the whistle of a train a few miles away as it sounded the horn at the last road crossing before it reached the trestle we’re on. So there’s no other option, we have to get off the bridge in the next couple minutes or we are going to get hit by the train.
We started running back the way we came since it was closer than going forward. We weren’t running so much as jumping from tie to tie and trying not to think about the inky blackness in between that dropped off 40 feet to the creek below us.
I’m telling this story, so obviously we made it off the bridge, but it was a close thing. We kept running until we got back to our tent. Where we built up a huge fire and stayed up the rest of the night, just in case they followed us. That was 40 years ago and I can still feel my heart rate go up just thinking about it.
Me and my friend were hiking the AT, we were both exhausted and there was this little patch off the trail that was big enough for our tents. We go to sleep and are woken up by someone very quietly walking around our tents, for a while. When I gathered the courage to open up the tarp, there wasn’t anything there. Just vanished. Me and my friend were FREAKED OUT. No idea what it was.
OK… it still gives me the chills.
I built a trailer with a back door that flips up. We slept with the door open; only a screen between us and the outside. I awoke around 2 am (pitch black) and I had to go pee. I saw something float by which was humanish sized and blacker than the dark night. No sound, nada. At the same moment, my dog, which barks at anything, growled. It was a sheepish growl, as if she was fearful.
I still had to pee, so I decided to get out and go. I thought my eyes played a trick on me. Little did I know, my wife was also awake beside me. When I went to move, she put her hand on my arm and said, “don’t go out there, there’s something there”. I whispered to her, “what did you see.”
She replies, “I don’t know, but it was a dark figure that floated past the door.”
I was freaked. We were in the middle of no where, no one else was camping there. Our trailer was backed up close to the edge of a drop. I didn’t go pee, I would have peed the bed before I went out of the trailer. The dog growled once more about 20 mins later, but otherwise it was quiet outside… I’ve spent a lot of time in the backcountry camping and even in the middle of winter, I have never experienced this much quiet… it was like every animal around us was terrified to move or make a noise.
We still have no idea what it was and we both still talk about it (three summers ago). Just incase you are wondering, we were camped along Duncan Reservoir in the Central Kootenay Region of BC. (Canada).
My brother and I went camping up the local mountain for a couple nights. On the 2nd day, while hiking, we heard some bears way off in the distance, but didnt think much of them as they were far away and paying us no attention.
After it got dark though, it was a different story. We couldnt see it, but we could hear footsteps and their low groans and chirps. Then another from a different direction, and then another… we were being surrounded.
We chucked rocks, screamed like banshees and even waved big flaming branches from the fire around… nothing deterred them. One got real close and let out a loud growl. We all know what bears sound like from movies, bit in real life its different. You can feel it in your chest like a deep bass, and there is a train whistle like overtone that made it sound monsterous. It was the scariest sound ive ever heard, and put both of us into a primal “get the hell outta there” mode.
We grabbed what we could, and made our way down the mountain in the pitch black darkness, thankfully we had flashlights and a road to follow. What was a 2 day hike up the mountain, was a 3 hour adrenaline fueled rush back down, and we ran outta steam at the bottom, and slept for a few hours once we felt we were safe.
We had glow sticks on our fishing poles on the tables, I heard some rustling and saw the fishing pole zoom across the table and get dragged into the woods HELL NO ABSOLUTELY NOT.
My group was camping in an area the rangers said was not bear country, so we didn’t put our food in a tree as we would have done otherwise.
But when we woke up in the morning, our packs, which had been lying right next to us in the tent, were dragged away, the sweet food was gone, and the frisbee had a large tooth mark in it.
Came across an apparently abandoned campsite and still smoldering campfire (in our highly volatile arid SW USA forest) one mid-summer morning while bike riding. As I was extinguishing/covering it as best I was able without adequate water, a guy with an arrow in one hand (no bow, just one arrow) and the waistband of his pants in the other came running out of the woods, obviously intent on attacking me. Felt the scenario was not likely to end in my favor, so I got back on my bike quickly and headed downhill while still unscathed.
I doubt anyone will see this, but I have a good story.
My family has property in Southeast Missouri. 40 acres in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Normally we camp in large groups (40+) for holidays and such.
One weekend, my wife wanted to go camping just us. We packed our young son and new puppy and drove down. We camped on a different part of the property than normal because my Uncle had started building a tiny one room cabin. Only 3 walls were closed in, but it had a roof and was big enough for our blow up mattress and the kennel. It was up on a hill, with the river running below.
I’d camped there my whole life, but I’d never seen it that dark. The sound of the river kept playing tricks on us, making it sound like someone or something was crossing at times. So we were already a little on edge.
My wife and I were up late, sitting on a little deck next to the cabin listening to music, talking, having a couple drinks. The light from the lantern between us only went so far and then it was pitch black. Suddenly, she stopped talking mid sentence, her eyes got big, and her face went pale white. I asked what was wrong but she couldn’t speak.
Finally, she stammered, asking me if I heard that noise. I hadn’t. She told me she just heard a woman screaming deep in the woods. I had her run and get in the car. I grabbed our son and puppy from the kennel and we got in and turned on the headlights and drove around camp for a while, shining the lights in every direction.
Eventually, I got out and assembled a makeshift 4th wall with plywood and we all piled in the bed and tried to sleep. When we got home, someone must have mentioned it to us when we told them what happened, but we looked up what a mountain lion sounds like and are pretty sure thats what it was, but we never saw anything.
I was drunk with my boyfriend at the time and friend. We were being loud and obnoxious camping in a dispersed area. We saw a drone fly through the woods. It was unsettling.
Was solo camping for the first time near Santa Cruz but at a well-populated campground.
Woke up in the middle of the night and was instantly alert and completely awake. I had no idea why until I heard something rustling in the bushes about halfway between my site and the neighboring site. Sounded like it was pacing back and forth.
Suddenly whatever was making the sound started sprinting straight towards my tent. I’m a small woman but I instantly shouted the deepest “HEY” I could muster. Must’ve tricked whoever it was because they came to a stop a few feet from my tent, stood there for about 10 seconds, and really, really slowly and quietly left the way they came.
Not the creepiest thing ever but I never solo camped again.
Being followed by a guy who was dancing the whole time and laughing. Was also a little bit funny because I’m German and it sounded really funny.
I was 10 (probably?) and i was with my family and my friends family (9 in total). we set up camp and were having the time of our lives for a few days. then on day four at night, we started hearing howling in the distance. that night i heard a bunch of rustling next to my tent and some snorting. last day i think we went to the lake for a few hours and when we came back all the food was knocked over. .
Back in 2022 I used to care for a cat colony near the Everglades and would feed them every night around 2:30am with my boyfriend at the time. After we took care of them we would often sneak into a riverbank in a state park where we would often see manatees, etc. and hang out until the sun would come up.
This one really quiet night out of nowhere the Westminster chimes or melody (the bells that Big Ben play every hour to tell what time it is) start to play very loudly. At this moment I remember looking at my phone and it was 4:43am, so I figured the ending of the bells would only ring four times and it was slightly off. However the bells reached four, then five, and just continued to ring for the next five minutes. These bells were loud and we tried to locate a source but couldn’t. Then they stopped.
This was just so strange and disturbing that we ended up trying to contact every church within a 10 mile radius of us to ask about their bell schedule and if they play the Westminster melody but no one could confirm.
I was awoken in the tent to the most horrendous, blood curdling scream i have ever heard.
It was my wife. Somehow in her sleep, she popped a bracket on her braces in such a way that the upper wire caught on a lower bracket.
Strangers camping near us ripped open the zipper to rescue her.
She gathered herself up enough to stop screaming. Fortunately for her, we were able to find someone with some side cutters in their car that I could use to set her jaw free.
That was I don’t know how many years ago, but we both still carry car dikes just incase there’s an emergent need to cut some wires…
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