“That Caught Me Off-Guard!”: Tales of Spine-Chilling Experiences

Ever since we were young, there have been unforgettable stories that never fail to make us feel terrified. Just looking back at that certain moment is never easy. 

Imagine yourself enjoying a good conversation with someone about the scariest encounters you know. Suddenly, you realize it’s still fresh to remember, and the feeling never changes.

1. Out Of Air

There was an incident in Trinidad where some maintenance divers were removing a plug from an oil pipeline and were instantly sucked into it. 

One was able to escape, but the other four were trapped for days in a small, oil-coated pipe for days with only a small air pocket to breathe in before they died. 

Thinking about it in detail and imagining what it must have been like for them makes me extremely uncomfortable. It still seems like a nightmare for me.

superficial_user

My uncle was in a bar one night and started talking to this random guy. He described him as "a really nice guy." It was not unusual to meet random good people. 

He met him a few other times in the same bar. They drank and talked about random stuff. Soon after, my uncle stopped seeing the guy at the bar.

Idk how long after, but my uncle got notified that he had jury duty. He showed up and found out what it was for. A famous wanted guy.

Lo and behold, the man was his friend from the bar. My uncle was promptly dismissed from jury duty for obvious reasons.

I_am_dean

I work the midnight shift at a gas station and have worked for quite a while at various stations in different areas with varying levels of criminal activity. I have regulars, of course. I’m a small-statured woman.

Hence, these regulars often worry about us and keep watch on creepy occurrences when they can. I had one man who worked in the metro an hour away who would stop in every morning for his cigarettes. 

He never smiled or seemed friendly, and as I often do, I tried to think of what I could do to make him smile one day. It took many months, but I finally pulled it off by having his cigarettes ready on the counter and already scanned for him to pay for as he walked in. He smiled and then asked me.

“Do you ever get scared on the night shift? You, small girl, is not safe.” I said I sometimes did, but we could lock the doors and hide if we had to, and that the provincial police (think state troopers, if you’re American) had a station close by and came in often to get their highway vehicles washed.

I had a good rapport with those police. He nodded and then told me a story about when he first moved to our country from Eastern Europe with his wife and child back in the late 80s and early 90s.

He fell asleep at work one night at the gas station he worked midnights at. When he woke up, the phone had been ringing for hours, and his manager was shaking him violently, asking if he was alright.

He was fine, he said, what was the problem? He was sorry he fell asleep. His manager screamed that it was fine, and he fell asleep to look outside. All of their motor oil was missing, and the outside of the place was a mess.

The thieves had come and swiped all the oil and left him be because he slept through the entire thing and then moved down the road to the next station for an encore. At that station, the clerk was awake and fought back, so the thieves executed him.

When he finished telling me this, he concluded with, “If you ever feel sleepy, just lock the door and do it. It might save your life.” I don’t work at that station anymore, but I always think about that guy and wonder how his grandkids are.

IgnorethisIamstupid

Growing up, one of my friend's family had a beach house, and I'd get invited every now and then. They had $, and the house was massive. 

It was a pretty cool place, too. They even had a full-time maid who had her own 'flat' at the back. One day, they went there for a long weekend, and when they opened the door, the place had been ransacked. 

It was all a mess, missing TVs, furniture, broken stuff... you get the picture. They went to check on the maid, and her flat was empty. All her belongings were gone.

They called the cops, who came over and had a brief look (not interested from what they said) and left, saying the maid probably had something to do with it. 

And that's what everyone believed for a week. Until the dad returned the following weekend to try to change the locks, etc.

He brought their dogs along with him. Yep, you know it... one of the dogs started digging and found the maid buried in the backyard under a tarp they had close to the pool. So, the theory no.

Overall_Draft_9416

The front of my Mom's car got run over by a lifted truck. Right up and over the hood. The other car suffered some damage, too, as it ran off over the bushes, through a gas station parking lot, and over the other set of bushes. 

There were cops across the street when it happened at a gas station on the other side of the 2 lane minor road. They just kinda sat there until my mom called 911. 

Eventually, after about 25 minutes, they walked over and asked if she was okay. They asked if she knew who it was, and she obviously said no.

They asked if she saw the license plate number. She said she did not. They said, 'Well, there is nothing we can do then.” Just WOW.

She said the BP station has cameras. Can't you check them? And they said, sorry, we gotta go. You can talk to the gas station people and see if they saw anything or have footage.

The gas station said they couldn't release footage without the cops, and the cops refused to even come into the gas station, left, and closed the case without ever doing anything.

Chimie45

The other night, my wife took our child out for several hours. At that time, I wrapped up work and then left to get dinner around 4:30 pm.

Got home around 6:30, played with our dog, and did a few chores. Then, when my wife got home at about 7:30, we relaxed a bit, and I headed for bed at about 9:00 pm (usually up early with our kid).

Maybe two minutes after crawling into bed, I get a text from my wife with a picture of our dry-erase menu board on our fridge. 

See, at the start of the week, my wife will usually fill out a rough menu for dinners that week. I remembered seeing it earlier in the day, and it was filled out as expected.

The picture she sent was off the menu, all scrambled up like the letters were all moved everywhere, with random words and squiggles throughout. 

Some of it was her writing, but others were incomplete words or rewritten words in handwriting that weren't hers or mine.

This freaked us out, as our one-year-old certainly didn't do it. The county sheriff showed up, swept the house, and found nothing. 

Nothing was out of place or missing, either. He was spooked by it a bit too. He said they never get a call out in the country where we are and recommended we change our locks (we hadn't, as the couple we bought our home from were elderly). So, we did that night.

Thesearchoftheshite

When I was 17, I was hanging out with 2 friends, and they wanted to go in the woods. I didn't feel like it, so I drove them and waited in the car.

After a while, I was getting bored and decided to go meet them, but there were 4 paths going off in different directions, so I just took the biggest one. 

After walking for a few minutes in the pitch-black forest (before flashlights on phones), I come across this dip in the trail. On the other side is a bench lightly visible due to the moonlight.

On the bench is sitting a man, and another one is standing in front of him, but I can only make out silhouettes. Being sure these are my friends, I yell out to them before walking over. 

If you ever walked the woods at night, it's just an uneasy feeling all around, so I was cautious to begin with. Well, it turns out, just after yelling out to my "friends," both silhouettes turn around towards me. 

Not a word, not a sound. The guy sitting down starts sprinting FULL SPEED towards me in complete silence. I got the fudge out of there, sprinting also the other way and tripping over crap because I couldn't see anything.

I finally got out and locked myself in my car, but I was really worried for my friends. Maybe a minute later, I saw them both coming out of a completely different path. 

They also confirmed they never saw me or anyone else. My heart still sinks just thinking about that dude sprinting in silence. What the heck was that.

[deleted]

My college girlfriend called me one night. A famous wanted guy had been active for a while, and she was being followed - all over town and even after going in circles.

It was done by a white truck, which the guy supposedly drove. She fits the victim profile. She was a brunette living in (house-sitting for her aunt) a wealthy neighborhood.

My roommate and I drove over and filed in line behind her and the truck. She lived essentially ON the LSU grounds, so I assumed it was a stupid student prank or something. 

She parks at her aunt's house, the truck stops one house short of her aunt's, and we pull in behind her. I explained that I was going to diffuse the situation. 

Walked over to the truck. The FBI says the wanted man is a white guy. This man is African American. Explain no one is upset, but he's freaking out my girlfriend. 

He needs to leave. He side-eyed at me and drives off. I saw the guy again a few months later on the cover of the Baton Rouge paper. He's been arrested. He was the wanted guy.

Flailing_Aimlessly

Well, it's my story. When I was a little kid, 5-6? We had this neighbor who was like Grandma to me. I'd go over and have snacks, and she had a Mr. Potato head I played with that was her (now adult) son's toy. 

Weird core memories! He came home from the army in his twenties. I don't remember much about him, but he asked about taking my older brother camping, but my mom said no; she had a weird feeling about him. 

(Side note: we lived out in the country, not even a town, just a place). There were no locked doors. Everyone trusted each other.

My mom saw him at our little store with bee stings all over and was concerned. He said he got them at the creek. She thought that was weird because that's not where we went all the time, but okay?

A little while later (not sure how long), the news said there was a crime of some campers out past where we lived, but no leads. 

People were shocked - this doesn't happen here! My mom remembered her weird feeling and the bee stings that didn't make sense. She called the police to say, hey, probably nothing, but here's what I got. I remember detectives coming to our house to talk to her.

They had some other evidence that matched, but not enough to link him to the case (a couple with their child). It's unsolved to this day, though the detective said he knew it was him. 

A few years later, the guy went to prison for a crime involving a woman who ran out of gas, and he offered her a ride. She lived, thank god.

gottabkdngme

Something weird happened to me; more scary in a what-could-have-been kind of way, so not on the same scale as the poor people in the comments.

I was 17 years old (male) and walking home from a night out quite out of it at about 2 am. I’m in a lonely part of my walk, with no people, few cars, just a road and some large shops: a B&Q and a carpet showroom - out-of-town shopping complexes that have since become ubiquitous in the UK.

Anyway, In a lay-by about 15 feet away is a silver car pulled up with lights on. As I stumbled past, two men stepped out and called me over.

Something about the situation immediately sobers me up. I kept walking, and one of them shouted, “It’s fine. We are the police; we will drive you home.”

I stop for a moment and reply with some smart-arse comment along the lines of how police would never do this and that they were dodgy. Calling them dodgy always sticks in my mind. He insists I’m too drunk, and it’s not safe for a young man like me, and I should let them take me home.

I say no, and he tells me to come over here and listen to the police radio in the car to prove they are real police. Weirdly, the guy is almost begging me, desperation in his voice.

I repeat a firm no, tell them I’m fine, and keep walking. The minute I was out of sight, I ran as fast as I could and didn’t relax until 30 minutes later, I was home. I can only assume they didn’t manhandle me into the car because there was the very occasional taxi driving past.

I'm 45 now and occasionally think about how that could have ended for me. None of the scenarios seem good. Sadly, stories like this are probably more routine for women, but at the time, it really shook me up.

Sad-Difficulty2303

My high school girlfriend called late one night after I was home and in bed. She said that something had happened and asked if I could come over. She was clearly shaken and not full of details. So I told my parents and drove over to her house.

At the top of her subdivision, I was met by a cop with lights on. He asked where I was going, and I told him about the call from my girlfriend. 

He lets me go by, and I come over the hill to the cul de sac where she lives, and I see multiple cop cars around the circle. They watch me pull up and get out of my car. 

My girlfriend came running out of her house and met me in the street. She explained that someone had broken into her neighbor’s house and started beating her with something heavy.

The neighbor managed to get out of the house and headed to my girlfriend’s house, where she started banging furiously on the front door. My girlfriend’s dad was out of town, so her mom answered the door, and the neighbor just fell into the foyer, bleeding.

Her mom looks up to see the attacker headed up the walkway towards the front door. She pulls the neighbor into the house and closes the door, hitting the attacker with it before it fully closes. 

He then took the heavy tool he had used to beat the neighbor and smashed the little window at the top of the door. Her mom started screaming, and the attacker just turned around and walked up the street into the darkness.

I spent the night there that night (along with two or three cops outside in their cars), and in the morning, we could see blood on the floor in the foyer and above the front door from where the attacker had swung the bloody tool to smash the window.

No one was ever caught or even identified. It was just completely random. The neighbor survived and, to my knowledge, had no permanent physical injuries beyond scarring from having her scalp stapled shut. She moved away shortly after the incident.

LurksNoMoreToo

I was around 10 years old. I was at school, but my mum told me she was thinking of taking me to the doctor in the afternoon (recurring eye issue).

Lunchtime and I was in the dining hall when the office woman told me there was a taxi outside for me and I needed to go. I assumed my mum booked it for me as she can't drive. I cleared up my stuff and got my bag.

Just about to leave when I remembered my jacket in my classroom. I rush to get up and head out for the taxi. The office woman told me I was too late and the taxi had gone without me. I just went back to class, but panicking, my mum would be angry at me.

School finishes and my mum is waiting for me at the gates. I burst into tears, apologizing for missing the taxi and thinking I was in big trouble. 

She never ordered a taxi and had no clue what I was talking about. She ended up not making the doctor's appointment. No one ever found out who ordered the taxi or who the driver was. My mum doesn't like to think what would've happened if I hadn't forgotten my jacket and got in that taxi.

funkster80

When I was learning to drive, my instructor advised me to always lock my car doors as soon as I got into my car. I asked her why & she told me her personal experience.

This happened almost a year after she passed her test. She finished work about 3 am. She had just gotten into her car & gotten her keys in the ignition when 3 guys jumped into her car.

She had a knife to her neck & was told to drive. They give her directions to an alleyway. They dragged her out of the car & took advantage of her. 

After they were done with her, they left her in the alleyway and stole her car & purse. It took her a while to get help. Police did find her car a few days later, abandoned & on fire, on the outskirts of the city. 

But the guys were not caught. The reason she started to teach driving was her way to protect other women & make sure no one else goes through what she went through. So she advised all her female students to lock their car doors as soon as they got in.

RottweilerBridesmaid

My older sister was driving home one night after work when she was in high school and stopped at a stop sign. The moment she did, a man jumped out of the bushes and opened her passenger door. 

She reacted by flooring it. He was half in/half out of the car and ended up getting dragged quite a bit before he finally let go of the door.

She drove the rest of the way home with her door hanging open, crying and petrified. I’m pretty sure she ran every stop sign between that point and home.

However, it was pretty late, so luckily, no one hit her or anything. The very first thing I do when my butt hits the seat in my car is hit the lock button.

Kimber85

My aunt fell asleep on her couch one night, and my uncle was asleep upstairs. She woke up around 12 am to a random man staring at her while she slept. 

He said, “The guy upstairs was sound asleep.” Meaning he came in, saw my aunt on the couch, looked around, saw my uncle asleep upstairs, and then sat there and watched. 

She told him to leave, and somehow, by God's will, HE LEFT. He slid in through the back door……. We live in a relatively safe area! That is the craziest thing I have ever heard.

[deleted]

She drove the rest of the way home with her door hanging open, crying and petrified. I’m pretty sure she ran every stop sign between that point and home.

However, it was pretty late, so luckily, no one hit her or anything. The very first thing I do when my butt hits the seat in my car is hit the lock button.

Kimber85

So when I was around 18, I went to town to drink something with my friends. We went all in, and by 2 am, I was completely wasted. Couldn't see, walk, or think straight. 

One of my mates remained sober to drive us back home. We went to the parking lot, and I could hear a voice whimmering somewhere in the dark. 

I turned around and saw 2 guys carrying a girl to a car. I got closer, and now I could hear her voice. She obviously was drunk, but she repeated, no, and I don't want, over and over. 

Adrenaline kicked in, and I became sober instantly. I screamed at them and immediately called the police. I wasn't fast enough so they could get in the car and drive off. 

But I saw the license plate and gave it to the woman I talked to at the police station. They informed me about 10 minutes later that they had arrested the two guys. The whole scene was so terrifying. This was in Germany.

JamesJameson420

When I was about 18, my friend and I went to the movies and then decided to walk home. It was a bit of a walk, but we didn't want to pay for a cab.

I'm always pretty vigilant when walking, especially at night, so I noticed a guy with his hood up walking behind us. Every so often, I'd look over my shoulder to check on him. 

He started pretty far behind us but was gaining ground weirdly quickly. The last time I turned my head, I caught him SPRINTING at us. I panicked and told my friend to run for it.

I turned around and saw 2 guys carrying a girl to a car. I got closer, and now I could hear her voice. She obviously was drunk, but she repeated, no, and I don't want, over and over. 

Adrenaline kicked in, and I became sober instantly. I screamed at them and immediately called the police. I wasn't fast enough so they could get in the car and drive off. 

But I saw the license plate and gave it to the woman I talked to at the police station. They informed me about 10 minutes later that they had arrested the two guys. The whole scene was so terrifying. This was in Germany.

JamesJameson420

This only happened earlier this year; a work colleague was off work for a long time, unlike him. When he eventually returned, we found out that his friend had been ended by a group of football(soccer) wankers.

They'd been in a pub watching a match for the team they supported; they were celebrating a win when a group of men from the opposing team got angry and started arguing. 

When my colleague and his friends left the pub, they jumped his friend. They beat him so badly that he ended up in hospital, where he eventually succumbed to the injuries.

This is one of the reasons I hate football, especially where I am (England). Riot vans, hundreds of police officers, etc., are always around every train station and football stadium. 

Sad little men were willing to take a life over a bag of air getting kicked around. It's not the first time and certainly won't be the last. Someone has died over freaking football.

LilithsGrave92

I was hitchhiking home from high school - I'd missed the late bus. Got a ride, and the guy seemed nice enough, and he was going to my town. 

We came up to a turn that you'd go straight if you were going to my town - if you turned, you weren't going there by any reasonable route. 

He started to turn, and I said, "This isn't the way to <my town>.” He says, “We're not going to <my town>.” We were going through the turn, going definitely under 20. 

I opened the door and bailed out. Tuck and roll, protect the head... he hit the gas and drove off. Glad I hadn't put on my seatbelt.

gogozrx

I'm the firstborn, and when I was just a wee babe, my mother put me to bed and headed off to bed herself.

Being new parents, they were all about the baby monitor. Dad was already asleep, and just as my mom was drifting off, she heard the telltale crackle, "Don't worry, sweetheart, mommy's here."

Needless to say, my mom about crap herself and catapulted to the nursery...to find me fast asleep and totally alone.

Turns out the neighbor had just had a baby, too, and they were picking up each other's signals. They actually picked up all kinds of things over time. Used to hear the truckers radioing to each other from the highway like a mile away.

MaliseFairewind

A chimpanzee named Travis attacked his owner's friend. Travis attacked and mauled his owner's friend, blinding her and severing several body parts.

This ended up lacerating her face before he was shot by a cop. The owner called 911 during the attack. Travis' screams can be heard in the background.

It happened at the start of the tape as the owner pleads for the police. Initially, they believed the call to be a hoax until she said, "He's eating her!"

SuvenPan

My brother was dating the love of his life up until a few years ago. They met because they both worked in a restaurant; he was a piano player, and she was a waitress. Things were going amazingly between them.

The only problem was she had a jealous ex. He knew when they left work and what shifts they'd work since it was the same each week. 

He decided, for whatever reason, he was going to teach my brother a lesson for dating his ex and planned to attack him when he left work one evening.

That night, my brother and his partner were getting ready to leave, and he stopped for a second to talk to a colleague, meaning she left first.

As soon as she stepped out the door, he ended her and then ran. She died in front of him. That attack was meant for my brother.

He's gone through a lot of therapy and down some very dark paths since then. But it is finally coming out of the other side of it. 

But it's terrifying how close I came to losing my little brother and how much he lost as a consequence because of some freaking deranged nutjob.

If I could get my hands on that guy, I'd get locked up myself. But he's been in prison for a long time, and so far, he's staying there.

AstroBearGaming

A robbery took place at my place, but the way in which it happened. I lived in a basement suite with my younger brother in a quiet neighborhood. 

The entire front of the house is exposed to the sidewalk, but the sides and the back are covered with fences and trees. We thought it was secured.

The only way to see if anyone was in the basement was through this small window in my bedroom that was about 5 feet from my bed.

I got word while I was out that my place had been robbed. The robbers went through the basement suite door through the back, kicked it open, and then made themselves upstairs after robbing the basement suite. 

They just so happened to rob the place in a 30-minute window when my brother and the people upstairs were out. This means they watched us for a few days and monitored our patterns.

What scared me was not really the robbery but the image of me sleeping while a robber pressed his face against the window 5 feet away from my bed, just watching me.

thedreaminggoose

A couple of friends of mine had a horrific honeymoon experience. They took their honeymoon at a resort in Mexico. It wasn't high-end but was nice enough for them, as they weren't well-off and paid for it themselves.

On their first night, they go down to a resort bar on the beach. The husband had a couple of drinks, and the wife was sipping on her first. 

It wasn't long before she began acting very intoxicated, and he, not being a stranger to drinking, was beginning to feel way more drunk than the amount he had drunk. 

They both began to feel uneasy, so they decided to head up to their room early. He is woken up hours later by his wife, who is hysterical. They are both completely naked and on the floor. 

No memory of how either of them ended up that way or even made it back to their room. Their room had been ransacked, and all of their cash and credit cards were gone. 

They both feel like they have the worst hangovers in the world and now they have no money and are in another country. They frantically begin calling family and friends but are having trouble getting ahold of anyone because it's so early in the morning. 

Finally, I managed to get ahold of some mutual friends of ours and explain what happened. They managed to get some money sent to them but had some hurdles because of their lack of cards.

Thankfully, they both made it back. They still have no memory of what happened after they left the bar. It shook them both up really well, and they don't like talking about it.

wrenchandrepeat

Back in 2019, I was in a place in Thailand for people who got caught in illegal substance use. It's like a prison for children. One day, the new prisoner transferred in. 

He was a 17-year-old boy with good sports skills (he was the best player in the country badminton club). The second day he arrived, he came to me and said, “Hey, you wanna escape this place with me?” I refused. 

The next day, we all called to gather in the center hall, and his dead body was lying there and cops everywhere. There the story is: after I refuse to go with him, he does the escape thing itself at night. 

He climbed through the wall and started swimming across the river, but he didn’t make it. The police said he drowned, like, 12 hours before someone saw his body.

After the thing happened, I was in shock for 2 weeks, and my mother had to take me to another hospital. Rest in peace, my friend.

Pussy-cat-cat

This happened to my brother about 10 years ago. He went to work in Sicily, Italy. He had a contract with a farm. Once he arrived, the owner and his men took their papers and made them work more than 12 hours in the fields daily.

This happened with no days off. Very little food, no hot water, and no money. At night, they were locked in their accommodation. 

He was also a driver, and they gave him this very old bus to drive that had faulty breaks. After nearly dying one day with that bus, he decided the next day he wouldn't go out in the field again. 

The owner visited him the next day with one of his men, who had a large metal chain. He hit my brother with it, but my brother fought back. He fought for his life and beat them both unconscious. He stole their car and ran for it...

Salty-Tomcat8641

Up to this day, I'm still looking for a logical explanation for this. This happened in 2003. So an ex and I were checked in at a coastal resort where the cottages were far apart, like 200m away.

Around 11-1130 pm, while we were both drinking beer with the lights turned off and only the TV on, the door knob suddenly rattled violently, like someone was forcibly trying to get it open.

There was no double lock on the door, so my first reaction was to jump from the bed and block the door with my weight. The force of my landing must have been heard from the other side, but the twisting of the doorknob continued.

By this time, I was already pressing my face to the floor, trying to look/estimate how many people were outside the door via the small gap between the floor and the bottom of the door.

There was nothing. Not one pair of feet or anything. But the doorknob just kept rattling. I should point out that the gap between the floor and the door was enough for me to see the outside.

At the very least, I could notice any change in shadow/light caused by movement, but there was nothing. The turning of the door knob then stopped. But I never heard any footsteps or any other noise.

Waited a few minutes and opened the door. Everything was quiet. No footprints outside or on the sand surrounding the cottage. We just noped out of there immediately.

AdBlockerExtreme

A glass-sliding-doors-every-side bungalow, outside sunken bath, a couple of meters of clearance around it, and a path.

I’d got up really early, 3 am, to see the sunrise at the volcano some distance away through jungle and road; I had got back early, maybe 10 am. I was so tired I lay on the bed in my shorts, curtains open on every side, and just fell asleep.

I was woken by this absolutely insane banging on the glass sliding doors. Bear in mind I could see all around through the glass, but for, like, the 4 wooden posts at the corners. But nothing there. 

I jumped (I mean, that’s a really mild description of what I did) and stood in the middle of the single space, just looking for where it was coming from. And I could see the windows shaking as they banged. 

It was properly fast, too. It was not a regular banging but BANGBANGBANGBANG, just this uninterrupted salvo of something I couldn’t see hitting the window so hard the glass was moving.

And then it started going round the cabin, banging as it went. Like I said, I could see it bending the glass as it did, though it was hard to track at first, just because it was so weird and fast.

I darted over to the bedside and called reception, shouting for them to come down (this was a threaded pathway away from the main hotel in its old Dutch Colonial building), and they came. It stopped after a few minutes. 

I waited, still standing, and they arrived. And when I told them what it was, the porters and butlers (yeah, it was quite a posh hotel thing) just crouched down and put their hands on their heads and began crying.

A couple of them high-tailed it right off in the car and didn’t come back to work. One of them, a lovely guy called Kenang, told me a bunch of stuff about the villagers who had been angry that these cabins had been put up. 

Apparently, only half of them, cabins 1-6, had been built. But he always gets calls on the switchboard from Cabin 12, which is as yet unconstructed, and when he picks it up, it’s just a jumbled hiss and voices.

migrainosaurus

Can’t even remember where exactly. An ex and I went for a romantic weekend out of Jakarta somewhere, a mountain resort surrounded by rice paddies and tea plantations. 

If I remember correctly, it was beautiful and expensive. I was woken up at probably 3am in the pitch black in our room by some banging on an internal door, and then I heard it slide open.

In that split second, I thought it was my ex who couldn’t see anything, trying to go to the bathroom. Then she freaking sat up and screamed beside me. 

I crap myself. Got up and turned all the lights on. The sliding door that we’d locked was unlocked and wide open. I thought initially someone had broken in, and we’d startled them, but the outside door was still locked.

We noped out immediately as well. We managed to find some other weird reports online, but there wasn’t much. This is back in 2008.

We never got an explanation. The only thing I can think of is that someone may have gotten in via a manhole or something, though I never waited around to bother to look. 

I refuse to believe in supernatural stuff, so it’s the only logical thing I could consider. As I say, I’ve clearly suppressed it until now.

sendintheotherclowns

Stayed at one of the biggest hotels in Surakarta. Our room was directly in front of the prayer room. I found it odd that, unlike other places where prayers were recited only during prayer times, the verses were ongoing on a loop throughout the day and continued even at night.

Started to get suspicious when we heard things crawling in the ceiling and the air conditioner turning on and off on its own. But hey, these can always be explained by faulty wiring or critters in the ceiling. 

However, whatever it was, it sounded much too large for the plaster ceiling. It got worse when it got somewhat rhythmic with the noises in the ceiling. Like it was timing its movements with the verses.

But whatever. I was tired and decided to just sleep. I woke up at 3am to see a wispy, shadowy creature hunched over the table with its back to me. Eating.

When we checked out, I delved deeper into the Google reviews. Half the reviews made reference to spooky things encountered in the hotel.

JohanPertama

My personal scariest was in 2013. I was driving about 40 or 50 feet behind this red truck at midnight. This is a decently long bridge that peaks in the middle, about 3/4th of a mile on either side. 

The roads on either side are also another straight mile of length open with no roads branching off. You can see about 2 miles in either direction when you're in the middle of the bridge. 

I was following this truck, jamming to my music, and headed home from a GF’s house. For some reason, right before the red truck crested the top, I got a really weird feeling in my gut, like when you’re on a roller coaster.

The truck passes the peak, and from my point of view, you can’t see anything past the peak until you get over it. About 4-5 seconds later, I reach the peak, and the truck is completely gone. 

I look down the long stretch, and there isn’t a single vehicle. Even if that had been a Bugatti that slammed the gas pedal, they wouldn’t have been able to drive out of my view by then.

I tried looking it up to see if a red truck had driven off that bridge before, but I could never find anything. To this day, I’m not sure, but I can clearly remember that red Ford Ranger.

xDocFearx

My father was a Vietnam Veteran, and he never really talked about the war to us. You could tell it was painful for him. As he got older, he became really sick, and the VA doctors said that it was all due to him being exposed to Agent Orange while in Vietnam. 

He passed away almost 8 years ago at age 68. He was getting full compensation from the VA for his disability, and one way for him to get the money was to see a psychiatrist. 

I took him to his appointment, and he asked me to go in with him for support. The psychiatrist asked him to talk about his time in Vietnam, and one story he told that broke him down into tears was about a friend of his.

So soldiers were told that if they were sleeping and they heard sirens that bombs were about to be dropped, they needed to try and cover themselves with whatever they had that may be substantial. 

My father and his friend were sleeping, and the sirens went off. My dad woke and threw whatever he had on top of him, and luckily, that saved his life. 

When the bombing had stopped, my dad came out from underneath and saw that his friend had never taken cover due to him sleeping through the sirens, and he was decapitated. I will never forget that story.

Remote-Specialist-95

My grandpa and his hunting buddy were out moose hunting years ago when my mom was still a kid. They were about an hour into a hike, looking for a big bull, when they decided to split up to cover more ground.

My grandpa, after about 15-20 of walking through dense brush, came into a small clearing of trees. And a mama grizzly and her two cubs. Almost instinctively, my grandpa scrambles up the closest tree out of the angry mama bear’s reach, even kicking at her snout a few times.

After circling and scratching at the tree he’s in, Mama Bear ambles off into the brush, her cubs right behind her. When he thinks he’s in the clear, he starts climbing down, but a crashing from the same bushes Mama Bear walked into makes him go straight back up the tree.

She must’ve seen him trying to climb down, because she charged right back at him, now furiously snapping at his feet and shaking the tree. Again, after circling the tree and growling up a storm, she leaves a second time, and again, my grandpa waits, but a little longer.

He manages to carefully make his way down and sort of speed-walks in the direction where he and his buddy parked their truck. Mama Bear had definitely been watching because as soon as he was almost out of the clearing, she came charging out once more. 

He quickly shot up another tree, this time a little higher up than his previous safe spot. After a good long while of her snarling, shaking, and scratching the tree, and overall terrorizing my grandpa, she left, this time a little faster.

My grandpa was in that tree for what seemed like forever, listening carefully for any movement, but after about half an hour, he slowly made his way down the tree, pausing every so often to make sure Mama Bear wasn’t just peeking over the brush, waiting for him. 

After making it to the ground and checking to see if the coast was clear, my grandpa made a quick but quiet getaway back to the truck, where his hunting buddy was waiting, equally empty-handed.

When questioned why he didn’t bring anything back, my grandpa explained he just had a run-in with the world’s most persistent mother bear. That was explanation enough.

totallynotalaskan

So people think of that one South Park episode with Bear Man Pig, no, it’s not even close to that. So there was this camp I used to go to during the summer. 

There were probably around 500 kids there for a week straight. Everyone had cabins they would stay in, assigned by gender and age, and an older person was in charge of one cabin. The older person was around 17-18, watching 13-16-year-olds in the cabins.

Then, the staff were actual adults who had their own cabins, but they would be on night shift duties to walk around and make sure everyone was staying in their cabins. So now that you kinda know the setting, let’s get into the legend. 

As it goes, when all the kids were in the cabins, and the lights were out in the woods, a bear would come out from the deep woods and wander into the campgrounds. The bear would then stand on its back legs and walk as if it were a human. 

Then it would choose to go into a cabin, and if you were unlucky, it would go by your bed and watch you sleep. If you made any single move, it would grab you and take you into the woods, never to be seen again. 

Hearing that scared the crap out of 14-year-old me. It was something the older girl told all of us. A bunch of the other girls were like, “Pfff, it’s so we stay quiet and sleep,” but other kids from cabins heard of it, too. 

I never stopped thinking about it and always tried to stay as still as possible when I slept. Flash forward a few years later. I ran into one of the staff members who used to work at the camp.

I told them how scared I was about Bearman, but getting kids to stay quiet was a good trick. Well, it turns out it’s actually based on a true story. I guess back in the 80s, a man dressed in a bear costume was some sort of mascot for the camp.

He took girls out of their cabin. Soooo, as you can imagine, to my horror, I was completely bewildered that Bearman existed at some point.

Fluffy_Sky2435

He became caught after the third-row seating flipped up and trapped him upside down while he was reaching for his tennis bag. 

He was able to use Siri to make two 911 calls. The first dispatcher sent police to the school, and they searched the parking lot. 

About half an hour later, he made a second call where he gave identifying details about the color, make, and model of the van. 

Still, the dispatcher did not relay this information to the police at the school at the time. He was dying by the second phone call and asked them to pass a message to his mother.

Later van's that night, his father used Find My iPhone to track him and found the van in the parking lot. He had suffocated. He died because the police did a half-assed search, and the second 911 dispatcher thought it was a joke.

AndromedaGreen

I'm 30 years old now. From about the age of 25, I began having extreme, vivid nightmares about being taken advantage of by a very distinctive man. 

I had them almost every night, waking up sweating and crying. I had no idea why it happened. A few weeks ago, my old primary school posted a picture of a groundskeeper that had passed. 

Sure enough, it was the man in my dreams. I attended the school at the age of 6. I still don't know what exactly happened, but through therapy, I believe I was taken advantage of as a 6-year-old.

It’s just that my mind chose to forget about it. But the monster never left my head and returned in my dreams to haunt me every night.

Normal-Put-5231

There’s an abandoned house in my town. Some dude inherited it after his aunt died. He’s just leaving it to crumble. But that’s not the scary part.

So this lady took in every stray cat she found. And she was good to them. They were always fed and healthy and brought to the vet often.

She was nice to anyone who was nice to her cats anyway. She’d sit outside in spring and summer and nice autumn days. So when winter rolls around, and she’s nowhere to be seen, people think nothing of it.

Then spring comes. People realize she’s not out, and after a week, concerns arise. A wellness check is found, and the cops get into the house.

They say the place stank of cat piss and crap, and there was a lingering smell of decay. They walk around, noting trash that has not been taken out and stinking cat carriers with tags in a spare room. 

And then her room. They open the door and find her on her floor being eaten by the cats. She was long dead and decaying by then.

Stock-Ferret-6692

There was a guy on Hoarders whose wife died, and he coped with it by getting pet rats. Rats that did what rats do to the point where he soon found himself with hundreds of little guys running around his house. 

Rats are very smart and loving, and he considers them his family. On the show, the guy, Glenn, seemed like such a sweet and gentle human. 

My heart went to him, and I googled what happened after the show. Turns out someone broke into his house and ended him while he was in a wheelchair. It's been probably a decade, and the crime is still unsolved.

CowboysOnKetamine

A Friend driving home at night on a freeway when someone jumped in front of his car, and he ran them over. He stopped and called emergency.

It turned out it was someone we knew well. They lived in the same town and were not all there. After some time, the man died.

A friend took it pretty hard. I don’t know if he ever got over it. One of the nicest people that would never harm anyone. I think about this every now and then.

OneRobotBoii

My boyfriend went camping with friends once (before we met). His friends went to bed one by one, and he was the last one at the fire, waiting for it to die down while he finished a beer. 

He said he got the distinct feeling someone was watching him, and he’s an avid camper, so he said it really struck him as odd that he was feeling nervous. 

Anyway, it was enough to make him put out the fire and go sleep in his car with the doors locked. So he falls asleep, and in the middle of the night, he hears a loud noise that wakes him up. 

He wasn’t sure what it was because he had been sleeping and didn’t hear anything else (maybe he dreamt it?), but it was still pitch black out, so he stayed in the car and went back to sleep. 

The following day, he wakes up, and the first thing he sees is a big handprint on his passenger side window like someone had smacked the glass. His friends swear it wasn’t them, and I believe them. 

They’re not the type to prank each other like that. It still freaks me out, and I sometimes think about it when I camp. Whew!

limpbisquick123

My ex was at an amusement park with his friends, and on their way home, they were involved in an accident. One of his friends was thrown out of the car and was kind of rolling (in pain) on the freeway. 

Some people jumped out to stop the traffic when a car, not paying attention, wouldn’t stop and ran over the friend's head (ending him obviously.)

My ex had to stay on the scene for hours while the police and coroner dealt with the scene. He was never the same after that.

omegagirl

Heard the story from a legal counselor working in an insurance company. One man is driving at night on the highway with his 3 young children in the back. 

The car alternator goes off, and after 15 minutes, no more battery, the car shuts off. He manages to pull off in the emergency lane.

As it's advised in France, he proceeds to grab the kids one by one and put them behind the road fence to secure them while the road assistant comes.

After grabbing the third kid, he figures out that he was on a bridge and actually dropped the first two kids a few dozen meters down. They died.

It destroyed his life. He faced homicide charges, divorced, and lost everything in two minutes. The guy who told me the story took his phone call.

Ben69_21

My mom answered the door to a young guy who was scared to death. He was crying and couldn't contain himself and asked to use a phone. 

The cops were called, and this is where we found out what happened. He apparently was taken hostage and tied up in his basement.

The worst thing was one of his parents was attacked by the man, and it happened beside him. He got away when they left and ran to the first house with lights on.

Jenghrick

Once, I was taking a shower in the afternoon. My bathroom door was ajar. I’m soaping myself or whatever, and suddenly, I hear someone whistling a tune of some sort. 

Not in the distance but in the bathroom. I nearly crapped myself and started yelling, “Jerkward get the fudge out of here,” not knowing what to expect. 

I pulled back the shower curtain, fully expecting that scene from Psycho, but there was nobody there. It was terrifying.

No, there was nobody else in my apartment. No, there were no vents between my bathroom and other apartments.

naslam74

Not really scary, but messed up. I know someone who was working in the middle of nowhere. He had to take a leak, so he walked over to a fence, and while he was pissing, he noticed a "dead animal" about 20 feet into the woods. 

After crossing the fence, he saw a pair of shoes attached. He called the cops, and they came to bag the body. Turns out. It was an 80-year-old lady who had some of her body parts detached.

A young couple had stolen her tax returns, so they ended her, dismembered her, and dumped her body in the woods. They had befriended her just to rob her.

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