People Share Their Scariest Stories

Every person existing has their dark, deepest stories that they will always remember. Some are wholesome, and some are scary. And people cannot deny the fact that true-to-life stories of creepy encounters are always frightening. 

These people from the Reddit Community shared their scariest experiences that seemed to be unexplainable and unusual. You might have your own scary story to share. Check them out!

1. Locked Doors

My mom was driving, and a guy ran out in the road, so she stopped and couldn’t hit him. It was nighttime, so it was pretty dark out.

Suddenly, three other men emerged from the forest, all trying to use her car door handles to get in. She locked them, luckily, and gassed them to the nearest town.

Remember to always lock your car after you start it because if it wasn’t unlocked, who knows what would’ve happened to her?

Oxidias

My friend's boss bought an Audi A4 convertible when they were new and interesting. One of the talking points was the pop-up roll hoops that were hidden unless you rolled them.

A few months after buying it, he got to test those roll hoops out, as he lost control and skidded down a steep bank about 10m (~35ft) deep.

The roll hoops did their job, and he survived with just cuts and scratches from the bushes he'd plowed through. The car ended up the right way up, and he got out.

He walked back up the bank to the side of the road, then got on the phone to the police to report the accident. While he was standing there, a driver from a car who had seen the accident came over to speak to him.

Approaching from behind, the other driver asked if he was okay. My friend's boss turned around to reply and dropped dead. 

His neck had been fractured but was in one piece right up until he turned his head when it severed his spinal cord.

BigBadAl

There are some really big houses in the woods in my hometown. One of the owners went out drinking with his buddies and realized he had forgotten the key to the gate when he got home. 

So he decided just to climb the gate. While climbing in his drunken state, he slips, and his leg gets pierced by one of the spikes on the gate. 

He was hanging there but too afraid to call for his wife. He was sure she would just open the automatic gate from inside the house, and since it was one of those gates that slid to the side, it would just rip his leg off if she did.

He was hanging there the entire night until his wife woke up, saw him, and called the fire department. My dad (one of the firefighters who showed up) said they had to see the spike to get him off.

Just imagine hanging from your gate all night and being unable to call for help.

TheLegendOfMaaike

Many years ago, before there were cell phones, we had these things called pagers strapped to our hips. Someone would page you with their phone number, and you would call them back when you got to a phone. As an "on-call technician" working in the Audio Visual field, my pager would go off all the freaking time. 

Like most people who used pagers, our clients knew that if you followed up your number with 911, it would indicate to the technician to stop what they were doing and call immediately. 

However, I was always busy, and I rarely, if ever, got 911 calls. One afternoon, traveling from Orlando to Saint Petersburg via Interstate 4, my pager goes off with a number I don't recognize, followed by 911. 

I find the first exit and pull into a little truck stop-looking place outside of Plant City to use the pay phone. This takes maybe 3 minutes tops. I walk in, ask for some change, and head to the wall where four pay phones are available. I pop my quarter in and dial the number displayed on my trusty pager. 

It rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, and rings. I'm thinking to myself, WTF ?!?! Who would page me with a 911 and not answer their phone? I just then notice another ringing sound besides the one in my ear.

I pull the handset from my ear and two phones over on the wall. Another pay phone is ringing but with an incoming call. I hang up my handset, and the ringing stops on the other phone. I walk a few paces over, pick up the handset, and look at the phone number printed above the buttons. 

I look at the number on my pager, I look at the number on the phone, I look at the number on my pager again, I look at the phone AGAIN..... except for the 911, they are identical.

I kinda lose my breath for a second, and then I go over to the girl at the counter and ask if she saw anyone use the pay phone. She said I was the only person in the store in the last hour. The episode probably took 15 minutes, but I was freaked out! 

The hair on my neck stood straight up, and I just wanted out of there! I get about 10 miles down the Highway and come upon a scene that looks like a bomb went off.

Four cars pile up, involving a tractor-trailer hauling a load of steel that had come loose, State Troopers and Paramedics just arriving. 

I pulled over to the side and helped the best I could, but it was all over once it began.  I have no idea why I got that page or from whom, but I'm convinced that if I hadn't, I would not be alive to write this today.

SuperDugg

The driver of one of the Semis we took in on trade died in the truck. The sleeping area is a "bunk" with a mattress that can be flipped up, and under it is a seat and a table. So during the day, it's a Dinet set up. 

And at night, you pull a lever and pull the bunk down to sleep. Well, something happened, and the bunk flipped up while the driver was sleeping, pinning him against the wall. 

He couldn't get it to drop back down and suffocated. He was stuck there for somewhere around 12 hours. Someone had noticed that he was parked unusually long for the kind of deliveries he did. 

The company that built the sleeper did something to the bunk so that it couldn't happen again and supposedly recalled all of that sleeper style.

z0mbiemechanic

I was in a crappy motel. The room had bedbugs. I was too exhausted to go to the front desk. I just needed to make it until the morning. 

I slept in the tub. Hours later, I heard someone breaking through the window. I had a big knife with me and ran out into the room to find a man halfway through my window. 

We stared at each other for a while in shock. I think we both were scared. Then he says," Is this your room?" I'm like," Yes, this is my room, man!" more staring. 

Then he slowly starts backing out while cursing me for leaving my window unlocked and not expecting him to break in. Just wow. 

[deleted]

My friend tripped and fell onto the tracks, landing his face on the 3rd rail. We kinda stood there in absolute shock because we thought he was dead.

But then he said, "Can I move? Will I be electrocuted?" We told him to move instantly, and he did. We got him off the tracks.

No less than 2 minutes later, a train went zipping by. I think the 3rd rail turned on seconds after his face came off of it. Our hearts dropped. 

I know that's not scary to a lot of people, but to me, it was because I would have lost a close friend back when I was about 12.

tacolikesweed

The mercury story always scares me because I used to work in a lab, and we had a compound that could go through gloves. I read the Materials Safety Data Sheet before I handled the compound.

It warned that proper personal protective equipment should be worn and that the compound was a horrible, toxic carcinogen. 

Not knowing that it could go through gloves, none of us did. We began handling it. I got some on my palm and continued working.   

It only took five seconds for my hand to feel warm and strange, so I removed the glove, and there was a large splotch on my left palm. 

I immediately went to wash up, scared for my life. It went through my skin immediately and targeted the nervous system. Still, I ended up being fine due to minimal exposure. 

I can't remember what compound it was now because it was so long ago, but it had a lot of P-words. Scary, scary stuff. There's nothing scarier than working in a lab and knowing you're doing everything right just to have it all go wrong!

MissChemistryNerd

Years ago, when I was 8, my family lived in this big, weird house on the edge of a small town. The school district was in the middle of a big restructuring, so even though we were only a couple of grades apart, my brother and I went to different schools and took different buses. 

This left me as the last person to leave in the morning and the first person to get home, meaning it was my job to ensure all the lights were off and the door was locked.

One morning, I noticed the basement door was open, and the light was on, so before I left, I turned off the light and closed the door. 

When I got home that afternoon, the light was on, and the door was open again. I just assumed I’d forgotten to take care of it when I noticed it in the morning, so I went over to turn off the light and close the door. 

When I reached the top of the basement stairs, I saw a big shadowy male figure towards the bottom. I freaked out, slammed the door, pushed a bunch of boxes against it, and then went and hid in my closet. 

For months, I didn’t tell my family because I was positive what I had seen was a ghost and didn’t think anyone would believe me.

Then, about a year after that incident, my mom and her boyfriend realized that small amounts of money had been going missing for months (totaling around $800-900, but never more than $60 at once). 

So we all walked around the house with flashlights, figuring out how they could have gotten in. Turns out some creep was climbing in through a small hole outside the house, shimmying through a crawl space, and coming up into the house through the basement. 

Realizing I had been alone in the house with him on at least one occasion was one of the worst, most terrifying moments I’ve ever had.

wesailtheharderships

My wife called me one day while I was at Walmart. She had a broken ankle and had just had surgery on a hernia. Her mobility was like 5 out of 100. 

And, of course, someone tried to break in. Her saving grace was yelling through the door that she was on the phone with cops, really with me. 

I'm on the way home. And I pass the guy. To the exact description, my wife and the cops gave me, I swerved his ass off his bike.

I hopped out of the car and sat my fat ass on top of him until the cops got to where I was. The guy had a gun, rope, and lock tools. 

It could've been wrong. Luckily, though, he ran. And with even more luck, we crossed paths. He could've gone anywhere when he left my yard but came straight towards the Walmart I was leaving, about 3 minutes away.

darthcannabitch

My friend had this neighbor who was a retired mechanic. They lived on some properties with large front lawns and long driveways. His neighbor had a couple derelict cars parked near his garage that he took parts from occasionally.

His neighbor started hearing noises from his front yard while sitting in his living room. There would be nothing there every time he'd go to the window. 

He assumed it was a raccoon or a coyote or whatever. He kept hearing the noise, so he'd go outside to look around but would find nothing. He'd put out traps and occasionally catch something, yet the noise persisted. 

Soon, he started claiming that he heard voices like whispering coming from the front yard. He'd go outside and look around the perimeter of his property but would find nothing.   

It was persistent, so he'd started calling the cops. Every time the cops came and looked around, they would find nothing. So they told him he needed to stop calling them for this and perhaps get a security camera.

So this guy thought he was losing his mind. He couldn't sleep one summer evening, so he went to the back patio to smoke a cigarette. Suddenly, he heard voices coming from the front of his house. 

He put his cig out, snuck around to the front, and got there just in time to see the doors to his derelict conversion van silently shut. He ran back to the backyard, went inside his home, and called the police to tell them what he had seen. 

The police arrived and approached cold (i.e., without lights/sirens), and when they came to the van, the doors swung open, and a bunch of people ran out in every direction. 

Upon searching the van, the cops found syringes and paraphernalia and determined that people were shooting up in there.

br0b1wan

My dad and some friends got drunk and went for a drive on some back roads and were going as fast as the truck would go as teenagers. 

My dad was slightly less drunk than the others and eventually demanded they let him get out. They pulled over, and he and one other girl got out. He and the girl started walking to town while the other three sped off in the opposite direction.

Less than a mile up the road from where they got out is an extremely sharp turn, which they missed and hit a tree going pretty close to triple digits (miles per hour).

Two of them died on impact, and the only reason the third survived was because they crashed in front of a house that two doctors lived in. 

The survivor was paralyzed and lost his leg and part of his arm and was in the hospital for eight months before dying. This was in the ‘60s, so medical care wasn’t what it is today.

When I got my permit, my dad took me to that corner to explain the importance of safe driving. It gave me goosebumps about how close he was to being in the truck. 

He said that the driver's dad got what remained of the truck to be hung up in the center of town for months after to be a warning to all.

justthatoboist

I was hanging out with a buddy at the bars, and we left to go back to his place for some smoke and video games. His roommate comes home from work (he was a bartender).

He tells us he's heading out to the bars and asks if we want to go; he'll drive. We go back and forth but eventually decide to stay in. 

The buddy had been drinking heavily at work, but we couldn't tell. He ended up flipping his jeep off an overpass and dropping 20+ feet. The entire back of his jeep (where I would have been sitting) was crushed into the back of the front seat. 

The roll bar was smashed into the passenger side. Buddy ended up getting some serious brain injuries and spent the next few years learning how to walk and talk again. 

He's still pretty off and much different than he used to be. My other buddy and I came very close to a similar or worse fate.

DarthRusty

A few months ago, a guy in maintenance was putting in new poles to mark where forklifts couldn't go since some guys were driving them way too close to the offices for whatever reason. 

Apparently, one of the welders on our shop truck wasn't appropriately grounded, so when someone would weld, the entire freaking cart was HOT.  

Until now, the perfect circumstance to complete the circuit to cause electrocution hadn't been met. Well, that ended that day.   

He was welding a plate to the pole and managed to touch the cart and the pole at the same time and was being electrocuted with, I believe, 480+volts.

Luckily, another mechanic was there, kicked him out of the loop, and saved his life. This cart has been unsafe like that for YEARS, and nobody knew until that guy found out the hard way a few months ago. 

I have many stories like this from my years in production facilities. How the last company I worked for is still up and running, I have no freaking clue. I know they bought their way out of a lot of trouble.

PcNoobian

I once heard a property was abandoned, and it was all over the school that it was haunted. My friends and I decided to drive up to take a look at it one night (it sat on a few dozen acres). 

There was no fence or signs prohibiting access, and all we had to do was take a dirt road for a mile to get to a hill that overlooked the whole property.

It turns out it was abandoned but still owned and had a caretaker. The caretaker literally drove a truck with the lights off right up to us and then turned them on and tried to ram us. 

We could avoid him, but he followed us at 60 miles an hour off his property back onto the road, then into and past a residential neighborhood, trying to ram us off the road the whole way.

My car and his truck narrowly avoided hitting houses and parked cars and narrowly missed driving straight into a church before he stopped and turned around.

I know I was on his property, but there were no signs and no barriers, and we were just on the edge of it. That he chased our way past his property and tried to end us multiple times, and probably felt justified because we were trespassing, still gives me the chills.

People are capable of anything if they feel justified in their violence.

squasharito

One night, I was out at a bar in New Rochelle, NY, with a friend I was visiting. We went outside for a cigarette, and a car flew past the bar. 

The car burned through a red light and started going up this hill that was on a curve. We watched as he veered over the double yellow and smashed head-on with another car approaching. 

Both car's hind ends lifted up, then slammed down. The car that was driving correctly burst into flames. I ran inside and grabbed the fire extinguisher, then yelled to the bartender to call 911 and say there had been an accident.

My friend, a few other patrons, and I ran to the cars. I used to think this was a fictional trope, but I was pretty drunk before this happened, and I swear it sobered me up instantly. 

I tried spraying the fire, but it did nothing. The fumes and heat were awful; all we could do was stand back. The worst part and this will haunt me forever, was that the woman in the burning car was screaming as she died. My God, it was the worst sound ever.

The fire department came and put the fire out. The police took us back to the bar and took statements. I found out the next day in the news that the car that was not speeding was being driven by a young woman coming home late from work. 

She was a block away from home and was either newly married or a new mother. The rotten motherf*cker driving the other car was some rich drunk cocksucker. 

He lost a leg but otherwise was physically unharmed. I have no clue if he did time, as I left to go back home a day or so later.

[deleted]

In my town in the early 90s, a notorious man had all of BC, Canada, on watch. My wife's mother (years and years before I knew them) had been home alone while her Husband was in England doing tree surgeon work (arborist) 

She was in her laundry room when a man walked up from her basement, completely scaring her. She freaked out and said what the hell are you doing here?  

He said he was friends with her husband and was just coming to see if he was there. Apparently, he told him he could just walk in. Which she knew was crap.

She was smart enough to tell him that he was just at the store and would be back any minute. He said he would wait outside for him. As soon as he left, she called the police, but he was long gone by the time they got there. Two weeks later, the man was caught, his mugshot was put on TV, and it was the guy in her house.

sixesand7s

I was working the evening shift at a gas station. The man comes in all disoriented. I go to help him out. he has a gash on his head and doesn't know where he is. 

I couldn't see any crashes around, so I assumed he had fallen. Normally, we are supposed to stay inside the glass-shielded register area whenever anyone is in the store. 

Being a nice human, I went to help while calling the police/EMS. They got there and checked him out. They thought his head may have been fractured. Took him to the ER. 

I went back to work. Cops stopped back by for some coffee a few hours later. They told me the guy got hit by a baseball bat trying to break into a little girl's bedroom and was wanted in two other states. I never left the register area at night again.

[deleted]

When I was working back in 2006, I was working inside a multi-story car park. I came down in the lift from the top floor where I was working. 

As I got out of the lift, there was a woman in her late 40s, I would say, with greying hair and a maroon handbag. We brushed shoulders as I got out of the lift. 

I apologized, and she gave me a very blank look. I walked out to get some food, not thinking much more than that at the time. However, when I think about it, the lady looked quite sad.

I returned with my noodles around 20 to 30 minutes later. At this point, I got back, and the Police were everywhere. I knew it was her from the handbag lying on the floor.

Gosh, If I had stopped and spoken to her or left for lunch a little later, I may have been able to stop her Jumping.

hirsty19784

One of my friends had someone following her home, hiding in the bushes so they couldn't be seen. She booked it to her house, got inside, and he was watching the house from the outside. 

She called the cops. They came along quietly and got the jump on him. He had condoms, handcuffs, and a knife. When they got his DNA, it turned out that he was linked to a half dozen crimes in the area. 

She credits her running sprint regimen to outrunning him that night and firmly believes she would have been taken advantage of if she couldn't outrun him then.

JimmyL2014

I think my mom didn’t tell me this story for the longest time just so she wouldn’t unnecessarily worry me when I was younger.

But my parents split up when I was about 4 years old, and my mom and my sisters stayed in a small townhouse for a few years before moving in with my stepdad. 

Anyway, while we were at the townhouse for, I think, less than a year, my mom heard something in her room in the middle of the night, and when she woke up to go look, there was a man in her room. 

She audibly gasped and got out of bed either to fight or run to our room - she couldn’t really decide cause she was pumped full of adrenaline. 

The guy ran out of our back door, and when the police came, they found signs of forced entry. She never told any of us the whole story cause we were still sound asleep the entire time, but she ended up explaining more of it the older we got

[deleted]

A bunch of girls in my friend group decided to have a night out and ended up at the local gay club (I can’t remember why I didn’t go, but I’m sort of glad I wasn’t there. However, I also wish I had been so I could’ve helped). 

They noticed a girl on the dance floor who looked out of place. She had sweatpants and a t-shirt on, wasn’t wearing makeup, and had her hair in a ponytail. She also had a backpack on. It's the exact opposite of typical club attire and not what someone would usually wear to this place. 

They said that she seemed very dazed as well, and more importantly, a huge man was grabbing her and grinding on her, and she was just kind of standing there, letting it happen.

One of my friends tried approaching her to ask if she was alright, but the guy spoke for her and insisted that he was her boyfriend and that she’d just had too much to drink but was okay. Everyone was suspicious, but there wasn’t much else they could do then, so they just kept an eye on the two of them.

Eventually, the guy left the dance floor to go to the bar, and my friend could talk to this girl again. She said that she was EXTREMELY out of it and that it seemed more likely that she was feeling different rather than just drunk. 

The girl said she didn’t know the man she was with and wanted to leave. So my friend grabbed her and made for the exit, but not before this guy returned. He IMMEDIATELY flipped out, got right in my friend’s face, and started screaming at her. 

It escalated to the point that he swung at my friend, who barely dodged the punch. Thankfully, someone else had gone and found a security guard. They prevented this guy from hurting anyone, meaning my friends and the girl could all leave safely. 

She was still super messed up when they left, so nobody could get the full story out of her, but she did say that the guy had been following her around town all day. The really scary part is that the bar staff couldn’t technically do anything other than throw this guy out after my friends had left. 

One of them called the cops and gave them a description of the guy, but they said they couldn’t do much other than be on the lookout for him. So, chances are he’s still out somewhere and may do this again.

sexyswamphag

A colleague of my dad's went on holiday to a small cottage in Wales (in the middle of nowhere in the UK's winter time) with his wife. 

They were found by the owner of the house after the week they rented it for was up, completely insane, clawing at their skin, and the whole place was a wreck. 

The full story was never found out, but the guy and his wife were rambling about a red knife that followed them wherever they went that they found in the cottage bed. They are both still alive and, as far as I'm aware, under psychiatric care.

Blue_Phish

She was driving on the highway in the middle of nowhere (as far away from any town). Suddenly, a car passing on her left steers fully to the right in front of her, causing her to brake and steer very rashly. 

This obviously causes her to lose control and crash against a tree. She passed out and sometime later (she couldn't really tell how much time passed)

A group of Brazilians (all of this happened in Portugal) came to her rescue and told her things like: "Don't move," "We're calling an ambulance," "Just hang on there," etc... 

She eventually passes out again, and about two hours later, someone else comes and starts helping her again. Finally, the ambulance and her husband arrive. She tells them that some other people have been there before, but the guy that found her says no one was there. 

When they checked the trunk, everything had been stolen, including a computer, camera, etc... She later said that she remembers thinking the car that made her crash had been following her for a while and driving a little too close. Make of that what you want.

benudi

From when I was delivering pizza. I walked up to a trailer park house and knocked. The dude answered the door wearing a swastika armband, and he was bald. I told him the total, and he invited me inside. 

While he got the money, there were 10 more bald dudes, all wearing armbands, sitting in a circle in metal chairs. The guy gave me the money. I went to leave, but he grabbed my arm, got in my face, and asked, “Do you like n****rs?” 

I don’t want to be executed, so I respond, “Nope, not at all hate those f*ckers,” and leave as quick as possible. The scary part is that every other delivery driver but me that night was black, and they might have never been seen again if I hadn’t taken the delivery.

LewisRyan

My wife arrived at her parents' house, where she was currently living due to health issues with her Father. She got into the house (no one else was there at the time) and, instead of going further in, stopped in the first room that held the computers, which was right by the door. 

She went into the room and was messing around on the internet when one of the cats came. Her cat, to be precise. Well, this cat was super laid back. Loved everyone and never picked fights or got aggressive. 

He would lie down, let squirrels throw pecans at him from trees, and do nothing but take it. Not tonight, however, tonight, he was growling and hissing intermittently while standing between my Wife and the entrance to the rest of the house. 

A laid-back, sweet old cat acted like he would rip out a throat. My wife decided this was really weird, so she picked up her cat and left the house. 

Lo and behold, she sees a cop car patrolling down her street and flags them down. She explained the situation, and they told (demanded) that she stay in their cruiser while they both checked it out.

It turns out they found the back door wide open (super bad, her parents and her NEVER leave the door unlocked, much less open). 

Later, She found out from those cops that they were hunting down a wanted man who had been spotted in the area, and that was why they were rolling down a safe (normally) residential street. Super spooky.

runostog

A relative of mine was in college and living in a small off-campus house by herself. At the time, she thought she might have had a stalker. 

She had gotten some strange phone calls--no one answering on the other end, heavy breathing, and that sort of thing, among other things.

One night, she is home alone in her bedroom studying, just her and a cat she recently adopted. So recent, in fact, that she hadn't even named the cat yet. The whole time she is studying, the cat is acting crazy. 

She paced the floor, meowing constantly and sitting in front of her closet nonstop. She is getting really annoyed and finally has enough, so she gets up and goes to the closet to open it for the cat and hopefully shut him up. 

When she opens it, a man is sitting in her closet, and when she opens it. It startled him, so he jumped up, pushed her out of the way, and bolted out of the house, ripping a hole in the screen door as he tore through it.

She calls the cops, of course, and gives a description. She had a clear look at his face. They find and arrest him. Turns out, he was also a wanted man.

He had been stalking her for weeks and broke into her house to wait in her closet until she was asleep, at which time he would pull his mask down and take advantage of her. 

Same pattern with his other victims, but she was the only one to see his face. Her testimony put him in prison. The cat saved her.

highfivingmf

I used to have an incredibly chill, skittish little Siamese cat. Not a fighter. Not a ruffian. She would hide under the bed when anyone but me was in the house. Landlords and repair workers would say, "I thought you said you had a cat." But she was extremely loyal to me and bonded with me.

I was living in an attic apartment where the front door opened onto stairs, and then the stairs went straight up into the living room.

One night, she is standing at the foot of the stairs inside the house, yowling her fool head off. Just howling and yowling and really going to town. I'm half asleep and listening to her and wondering WTF, wishing she would stop.

Then I heard it. A hand grabs the doorknob and turns it. Click. Turns it again. Click. Turns it again. Click. Someone is quietly but forcefully trying to jimmy open the door by twisting the door knob hard in the middle of the night.

BOOM! I'm awake. My feet are on the floor. I'm, like, immediately vertical. My cat races to the top of the stairs, looks me in the eyes, and falls silent. She had done her job and gotten me UP.

This is about 2:00 am, and my boyfriend at the time would sometimes come home super late from his overnight job. So I first called and whispered, asking him if he was trying to reach the front door.

He says, “What? Heck NO, call the cops NOW.” Turn on all the lights in the house, make noise, get off the phone with me, and call the cops. Then call me right back.

I do that, and the doorknob stops. The cops search the area and the block and find no one. It never happened again. After that, I also barricaded the door.

I'll never forget that what could have been an extremely dangerous, if not potentially brutal, situation in the middle of the night was foiled by my gentle little scaredy cat with big saucer eyes who was terrified of her shadow. But when things got real, she woke my ass up. I couldn't have asked more of a dog.

LauraMcCabeMoon

This one terrifies me. I will be purposely vague about this since I’m figuring the events in this story are rare. The events are also mostly speculative since there weren’t any witnesses. 

A family member of mine is friends with a man (middle-aged) whose wife sadly died while taking their dog out for a walk through a rural area they were visiting.

They had driven up to a farm along the road and gotten out when the dog tore from her grip and ran off. She ran after it to the back of the barn (where the huge open dung cistern was).

The farmer wasn’t home, so when he returned later in the day, he found her car and thought it weird that a strange car had just been left, doors open, with no people noticeably nearby. He went around searching for his unexpected visitors and eventually found them.

He found something I had never even imagined before hearing of this. The dog had fallen into the cistern of profound, liquid waste from the farm animals. The edges of the cistern were way too high up to reach from the liquid surface level. 

The woman must have panicked because she had jumped in after the dog to save it, and that’s where her life slowly and brutally came to an end. The fumes that accumulate from that much dung are very toxic. 

The woman, after being unable to get back out, had lost consciousness and drowned, along with her dog, in a pool of cow dung.

I can’t imagine a worse way to die. I think about it now and then and hope that no one will ever die like that again. Poor souls.

frostyfreckle

One night about 2 years ago. I believe it was spring, about 9 or 10 at night ( a bit of context: my mother is a photographer, and she has one of those big, expensive cameras). 

I was just sitting in my room playing Xbox with my buddies. I heard the commotion of my family in the doorway to the backyard, the kind of commotion of people gawking, so I went out to see what it was all about. 

I ask my dad what it is, and he says there's something in our backyard. My mom tries to get pictures, but her flash isn't working. 

She's right at the fence trying to get pictures, and suddenly, the flash goes off and lights up the pitch-black yard. Right before my mom is a bear standing up on its back legs. When the flash was done, my mom was nearly in the house.

lonewanderer105

A girl I went to high school with. Her parents and her little brother left for the weekend to go on a trip, but she had softball practice and couldn't go. 

She was home alone, sleeping in her bed in a completely dark room. She's startled awake by the loud sound of her bedroom window breaking. 

She watches as a dark figure slowly crawls into her room through the window. The figure's eyes aren't adjusted to the dark but turn towards her because they see something. 

This mysterious man inches slowly towards her, trying to see what this lump is. He gets his face almost right up to hers before he realizes it's a person in a bed. His eyes widened, and he slowly backed away and crawled out the window.

esoteric_enigma

When I was nine, my brothers (10 and 11) and I were playing in our street while our mom watched from our porch. A man in his 30s was walking his dog past us. It was a cute golden retriever, and my 10-year-old brother loved it. 

The guy was friendly and said he was checking out his new house that was being built down our street. My mom overheard this exchange and politely asked us to approach the porch. 

The man followed behind us and introduced himself to my mom as our new neighbor. He said we were welcome to join him while he checked the progress.

This sent my 10-year-old brother into a pleading fit so he could continue playing with the dog. My mom politely declined and said we had to go inside for dinner, which caused my brother to throw a massive tantrum.

Fast forward one week later, and my mom shows us a newspaper article showing that the guy had been arrested for multiple cases. His dog was the bait, and he used the same lines on us as he did on them.

Dday82

Once, when I was driving to see a girl during her overnight shift at a local hospital, I experienced a non-substance-related blackout. The last thing I remember before the incident was driving toward a four-way stop in the middle of a residential area. 

When I arrived, my truck was in park and running with the driver's door open in the middle of the intersection. My shoes and socks were off and scattered on the ground next to the driver's side door, and I was in the middle of a middle-aged woman's yard about 40 feet away. 

She was screaming at me from her front doorstep, yelling, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" and standing with a child behind her as if I was a threat (which I am absolutely sure I appeared to be). 

I apologized fervently and drove straight home after collecting my socks and shoes. I have absolutely no recollection of the events during the blackout, no idea how long it was, and I still have no clue what caused it or what it actually was.

That is the single most terrifying thing that has ever happened in my life. This was about a year ago, and I still think of it several times a day.

DonSol0

My ex's father was a Sergeant of police, so I have the details on this.

I was up late playing video games. My ex was asleep after surgery, so dead to the world. The back door was cracked open cause the cat was out. I shut the bedroom door to keep the cat out and crawl into bed at 4:30 am.

At 6:00 am, my ex woke up, asked me why I'd left the bedroom door open, and went into the living room to discover we had been robbed.

We found an empty case of beer in our backyard shed. They had hung out drinking, waiting for me to go to sleep.

When they were caught it turned out they were a pretty nasty group responsible for multiple home invasions and other crimes.

Apparently, they had checked in on us sleeping and decided we weren't worth the trouble. My ex and I are generally light sleepers. Only her pain meds and my all-night gaming session saved our lives.

weirdfish42

I moved into another town. I was surprised by people who looked as if they knew me, even though I saw them for the first time. And everyone around was so rude, despite all other sources telling how friendly people there were. 

I was also greeted by "Oh no, you again?" in one place where I went for the first time. I was looking for a room for rent, and one of the owners told me he wouldn't rent it to me because "my co-tenants saw me following and stalking them."

I was like, "What the heck? Am I doing things and forgetting? Is something wrong with my mental health?" Then, I went abroad for 3 months. No such thing was happening there. 

Everything was normal. I thought, "Guess it's just a local culture. They do that to get rid of newcomers." Once I returned, I went to a fast-food to leave my CV - the guy said, "You were here a month ago, and it hasn't changed. We aren't recruiting". 

Right, I was on another continent. I couldn't have just bought 2 airplane tickets, spent several days, and just forgotten about it. And my bank account wouldn't forget, anyway. That's when I started to understand what was going on.

And then, one day, I finally saw myself on the CCTV, trying to steal something. Right. Stealing, following people, stalking, and being disliked makes sense. Some thieves looked exactly like me and even had a similar hairstyle (which was in fashion around).

As of now, I already know of 2 guys who look identically like me.

[deleted]

My brother was at a college party while in college (about 10 years ago) that a friend of his was throwing. Everyone’s having a good time and leaves around 1-2AM. 

The hostess goes into her room and falls asleep. About an hour later, as she was tossing and turning, she said she saw a faint outline of what appeared to be someone standing at the foot of her bed. 

As soon as she screamed, she realized the outline was indeed that of a man as he bolted out the door and out of the apartment. She told my brother she’s been sleeping with a bat under her bed since that day.

PrincePryda

I live with my mother, just the two of us, in a rather large house. One night, I woke up at 3 am because I could hear someone sobbing outside my room. Of course, I knew something was wrong, but I stayed quiet and kept listening.

It was my mother, she was saying "Please go away" very softly and quietly while crying (she didn't want to wake me up) and things got real when I heard male voices, it was a home invasion.

I had to decide within seconds: to go outside my room and confront the robbers (which is clearly a bad decision if you're unarmed) or escape through the window and ask for help. The latter meant that I had to leave my mother alone, but I believe I made the right choice by seeking help from my neighbors.

As soon as I got out, one of the guys who was waiting outside in their car spotted me. He called his companions and drove off as fast as they could because I had already alerted my neighbors and the police.

Even though nothing happened to my mom, I still feel terrible, and the thought of leaving my mother on her own really haunts me. But I'm certain it would have been worse if I decided to leave my room and confront them.

Zekusu

Once, a friend of a friend was on an online date. She came back home with the guy. They ended up talking for a long time, and since they had a great time together, the girl let the guy crash in her living room and pull out the bed downstairs while she went off to sleep in her bedroom upstairs. 

After about 10-15 mins, the guy came up to her bedroom, knocked, made a lot of noise, and told her he was hungry. The friend tried to find something for him in the kitchen.

But whatever she suggested, he said no and was adamant that she go out with him. She got irritated as she didn’t know the guy that well, and he was suddenly acting very weird. 

Just to get him off her back, she agreed to go out. When they finally stepped out in the street, the guy told her he saw someone hiding behind the curtains in the living room. He wanted her out to make sure they both were safe.

kiki1410

When my aunt was about 23, she was driving home from a late bartending shift in central California and stopped to get gas. It was maybe 2 am, and there were a couple cars in the gas station, but she didn’t think much of it. 

Rural California. Not busy streets. She’s pumping her gas and leaning against the car when the intercom says, “Ma’am, at pump 4, please see the cashier.” 

At first, she didn’t realize she was at pump 4, and they had to announce it again. Saying there was an error with the payment and to see the cashier. 

She walks inside, and the guy working the counter tells her to stay calm and that he’s called 911 but that he saw a man crawl under her car and was lying there. 

As they stood inside, they saw him crawl into the backseat of her car and the cameras. They waited until the police came and the man was arrested. He had a pocket knife and gloves on and appeared to be homeless. Scary.

teamsparia

I had recently broken up with my ex and was thus left to live alone with our animals in a 3 bed, 1.5 bath house we had previously been in together. It was my first time living alone, so I was already on edge.

At about 2 in the morning, my dog darted off my bed and started barking her head off. I woke up and heard the crackling of leaves underneath my window and someone tapping on the glass. I froze for about two minutes as the tapping continued, getting much louder, and she kept barking like a maniac.

I opened my bedroom door and ran into the living room with my phone, not knowing what to do. There were two entrances to my home and all of a sudden, I could hear someone frantically turning the knob on the door of the kitchen, slamming on the door, and trying to get inside. 

Thankfully, it was locked. I called my girlfriend (new girlfriend, not the one I previously lived with), woke her up, explained what was happening, and screamed, “WHAT DO I DO??” She was like, “WTF? Call the police”.

As I dialed 911, the slamming on the door stopped, and I saw a man’s face through my kitchen window looking inside. We made eye contact, and I nearly pissed myself. 

He rounded the corner of my house to get to the front door and started doing the same with the knob, yelling unintelligibly at the top of his lungs. I finally got through to the dispatcher, who said a patrol car was near and just to stay in my house. 

I hid in my room with my dog, locking the door behind me. Less than five minutes later, all of the noise stopped, and it took me a few minutes to get out and check to see what was going on. The patrol car was already gone.

I got a call from the officer about thirty minutes later that the man had been very drunk and got my house confused for his. He was angry because he thought his wife had locked him out. 

I am so, so glad I lock my doors religiously because I have no idea what would have happened if the man had made an entrance into my home and found me alone. Ill-intentioned or not, drunk people don’t act rationally, and I can’t help but think about what might have happened if he had mistaken me for his wife.

NoodleNoodle91

I had this happen to me in my old apartment complex. My girlfriend and I were in bed and heard this crazy loud knocking. We had roommates at the time, so I thought maybe one of them had lost their keys. 

I looked through the peephole, and sure enough, a random dude banging on the door at 1:30 am. I opened the door with my gun behind my back and freaked him out because he thought this was his place. 

He asked me where his place was, and I told him I had no idea, but it was not there, and he closed the door. No idea if he ever made it home or not. I like your name, btw.

tHeNiGhTmAnCoMeTh413

In Stanley Park in Vancouver. 15 years ago, I ventured in with my girlfriend and mate to go camping. My girlfriend on her way back from work to the campsite, my girlfriend messaged me saying some creep is following her. 

This is around 10 pm, so it's practically dark. She gets to the campsite, and I ask who is following her. She says she doesn't know as she just flat-out went into a sprint to lose him. 

The next day, as we were reading, we saw in the newspaper that a human body was discovered in the park not too far off from where we were camping.

capix1

So, my dad is super skeptical about anything paranormal. He doesn't believe in ghosts or demons or anything like that. Very rational, logical person. Not afraid of much.

He grew up in the countryside of Cuba. He and his family were farmers. One afternoon, he was out doing something in the fields, and it was getting dark as he walked back. 

When he got closer to home, it was complete darkness minus the moonlight, so he could make out enough to get through. Plus, he was very familiar with the land, so he was fine.

Suddenly, he said he smelled a very strong stench of rotting meat. He walked around some trees, and when he came to the clearing before his house, he saw a creature standing there. 

He described it as a horse with no head. No open fleshy wound or anything. It was smooth and had fur on it. But no head. And it was standing, but as he walked around it to take a better look, he said it wasn't breathing. 

He said it filled him with so much fear and dread that he took off running. He had goosebumps as he was telling me the story.

Many other family members witnessed some strange things on that land. Still, this one always shook me the most because my father doesn't believe in these things, and he sure as hell doesn't joke about them. And it just sounds creepy as hell.

villainouskim

I was at a very well-known amusement park establishment around the US, Think Flags, and 6 of them. Now, this took place when I was 13 or 14, and up until then, I've gone a handful of times, and there's one ride that I especially loved: Viper. 

It was probably one of their older rides, as the whole thing was made from wood. My friend can vouch for me on this, but I remember getting on the ride, sitting down, and thinking something about this was kind of off. 

I had some final severe destination vibes going on. Atuld hadn't figured it out then, but I buckled in and got ready for the ride. So the ride started, and I tried not to let it bother me. 

Around halfway through, I realized what the hell was wrong. The freaking seat is rattling way more than usual. Oddly enough, I think my friend was also starting to catch cause we turned to each other, and I said:

Me: Yo dude, is something wrong with this seat?

Friend: yeah... I don't feel comfortable. I think I'm going to stand up a bit.

Me: Alright, me too.

I kid you not. 4 or 5 seconds after standing up, the seat fell through, and there was nothing between us and the railings of the rollercoaster. Luckily, the end wasn't that much further at this point, and there weren't any big crazy drops, so there weren't that many obstacles to face. 

But hot damn, did I hold on to that bar with my life. In hindsight, I wish I had pressed charges, but being young and recently shaken, I just wanted to get out of there ASAP.

byho

Mystery virus appears in a shipment of monkeys in Virginia, seemingly out of nowhere. All attempts to pinpoint exactly how the monkeys were infected or where it came from turn up empty. 

The virus pops up a few times in monkeys, infects humans a few times (producing no symptoms), and decades later is found to have infected pigs (and one of the pig farmers).

It shows up, then disappears. It seems highly lethal, then produces no symptoms. And the frosting on the cake? They demolished the building that held the infected monkeys and built a DAYCARE in its place.

VeratoTheRed