Roads are simultaneously the busiest and quietest spaces of our world; just compare the hustle of rush-hour to the eerie calm of nighttime drives. But what lurks behind our country’s twisted paths and deer crossings?
Reddit asked drivers of the world to share the scariest thing they’ve seen while on the road in the dark. From the half-naked hitchhikers to trigger-happy tailgaters, buckle that seatbelt to 42 chilling stories about the freakiest things seen while driving at night.
42. Lady Look-See
This woman was on the side of the road and asked me to come look at her car, which was parked in a large turn-off. I asked what was wrong and she just kept saying to come look.
I apologized and drove away, and she just stood there while I drove away. More weird than scary but it was night in the country and I was alone. I offered to call someone for her, but she said no.
34. Face the Facts
I felt like something was following me, but I couldn't tell why. Later, I was at a stop light and a weird looking masked face slammed onto my window with gloved hands and screamed and disappeared quickly afterward.
I couldn't focus on anything else, so I had to find a hotel and sleep there even though I felt like I was still being followed and watched.
41. The High in Highway
I was driving to work at 3 in the morning—I work at an airport—and I was in the middle lane doing 70 MPH when a lady ran AT my car, in the middle of a highway, waving her arms.
I swerved into the left lane so fast I couldn’t believe I didn’t hit her later and kept going. I would have stopped, I really would have, but something in her face didn’t say, “I need help.” It was more “I’m on massive amounts of illegal substances.” When I got to my lot ten minutes later I called 911 and told them what happened. I never heard anything or saw anything in the papers, so I assume she wandered away.
39. Up, Up, and Away
I thought I was driving into Silent Hill when the road looked like it was flaking off and blowing away.
Just Nebraska after harvest and the dried husks where blowing away.
38. Great Wall of Garbage
There's a public park near my house, which gets pretty dark at night. I was driving home tired and exhausted after midnight when I realized that someone had dragged all the garbage cans and other large items out into the middle of the road to form a barricade of sorts.
I'm not sure if it was just a lame prank or if someone was waiting for a car to stop so that they could rob the person. I didn't bother to find out. There was just enough room for my small car to slip through. It's happened twice in the past few weeks, so I'm going to assume it's just some teenagers being jerks.
37. The Big Feline Finale
A big cougar running next to my car then for no reason decided to commit suicide and run under the side. I wasn't sure if it messed my car up and was terrified to get out and check. Eventually my 18-year-old brain decided I should check. It was dead but looking back that was really dumb of me.
36. I’m Not Pulling Your Leg
Parents went to drop my sister off at the airport at around 5 AM so it was dark out still. I see cars swerving and trying to avoid something. All of a sudden, I see a freaking leg flying. A leg. Not attached to a human. It's honestly the sickest thing I've ever seen. All I could say was—was that a freaking foot?!
We get to the airport and I see a state trooper. I tell Dad to pull over, so I can tell him what I saw. This man was nonchalant about it. Meanwhile, I'm freaking out inside. I don't think he believes me.
As we're heading back I see a couple of cop cars pulled over where I saw the leg. I keep checking the news and trying to find information online. Turns out it was a homeless lady that was walking on the highway. It was a hit and run. Her body parts were found in different places. The article was two paragraphs long. That's it. No more information.
But I swear, I saw a suitcase with a foot too. I can't remember too well but to this day it still bothers me.
35. No Warranties in Space
First, I would like to say that I was not drunk, high or sleepy when this happened.
I was driving back from a family event with my girlfriend around 2 AM. Everything was going fine until I looked at the moon.
I actually stopped driving and pulled to the side of the road to get a better look because I couldn't believe it.
What did I saw that made me do that? It looked like the moon was cracking.
There were no clouds over it and the sky was clear. My girlfriend saw it too and it was horrifying because for a moment, I thought the world was going to end.
And then everything was fine, the moon looked normal like nothing had happened. When I got home I immediately searched online to see if there was something about it but there was nothing.
I told a friend about this but he obviously didn't believe me so I haven't told anyone else then.
This happened around January 2012 in Arizona.
34. The Villain In Your Own Story
This story is one where I was the one that (unintentionally) scared somebody.
I was driving home from a friend’s late one evening—probably around 3 AM. The town I live in and grew up in has a reputation for being a racist area thanks to a few high-profile incidents and a reasonable amount of racist idiots living/having lived here in the past. As I approached the town, I was going round a roundabout when a car joins, ignoring my right of way and cuts me off a bit. It was a trash bit of driving but I’m reasonably good at not letting that get to me. What was mildly irritating though was given how keen the driver was to get out onto the roundabout in front of me, he then drove about 5mph below the speed limit on the way into the town, and like I said it’s late and I just want to get to bed.
About a mile later, we reach the Main Street of the town which has many turn-offs and I’m still sat behind them. They pick one of the quieter turn-offs which is the one I usually use to get home. At the end of that street, they can go left or right and still end up at the other end of the housing estate. They choose right, which is where I need to go. Then they have a few turn-offs in both directions before hitting another main road. They choose the quietest turn off, I presume thinking I’m following them and wanting to see if I actually am or if I’m just making my way into the main road. Unfortunately for them, they’ve turned onto my road.
They’re crawling along it at this point, obviously slightly worried. The driver probably thinks I’m still pissed about being cut off and I’m following him for some sort of revenge. So they decide to pull in and let me pass. They indicate and pull across a driveway which just happened to be mine.
I had to pull alongside the and open my passenger side window. The driver opens his and there’s 2-3 black teenagers in the car all looking slightly terrified by the pretty big skinhead—not by choice—white guy who has been following them and now pulled up alongside them in the middle of a quiet estate in an area known for being racist.
The look of relief on his face when I said “Sorry mate, that’s my driveway you’re blocking there” was pretty hilarious. Poor kid was scared but somehow in trying to get rid of me, made a series of road choices that convinced him he was about to be murdered.
33. Indigo Fumes
My dad told me this story from when he was in college.
My dad was heading to his hometown from his college. Now he left later than expected so it was basically pitch black out. Right before you get to his home town, there is this straight road through some trees with a couple turns. He is driving through this part and notices a flash of light in his mirror. He looks closer and realizes it's a car tailgating him with their lights off.
He is kind of startled and presses his brake some to light up his rear end and confirms there is a car there. In response to this, he floors it—he had a top of the line Camaro at the time—and is speeding down this road. He goes a bit and slows back down and looks in his mirror, the car is still there. My dad is confused as heck right now. Then the car pulls out and starts creeping towards his window.
My dad looks out his window and see a black hearse full of smoke lit purple. He is freaking out now. The hearse drives in front of him and lets out the smoke making my dad basically blind. He puts on the brakes and when the smoke clears the hearse is gone.
This isn't unexplainable though. We found out later that a local won a tricked-out hearse and gave it giant mufflers and stuff to make it quiet, and would drive on that road freaking out drivers.
32. Now It’s a Party
Maybe too late to the party, but when I was a little kid I distinctly remember my older brother driving me someplace through a canyon.
As we got near the top of the bend of the canyon, there was a dirt road that we drove up, and as crazy as it sounds about 50 yards off that road at the top of the hill I swear I saw a ring of 8-10 hooded guys standing around a fire, and next to them, there was some kind of wooden kind from which they’d hanged some dogs.
I still remember it absolutely vividly and it scared the snot out of me. My brother pointed it out and then we drove home, but I never mentioned it until a few years later, when I asked him about it, and to this day he swears he has no idea what I'm talking about.
31. Strawman
One cold October evening me and my partner were heading out to a small village in the Midlands to pick up our first puppy together.
Inevitably we got lost and ended up on country lanes in pitch black dark, when seemingly out of nowhere came a few houses, a pub, and a row of shops. We thought great, we can stop and ask for directions.
But, then something happened. In the faint light of our headlights, we spotted what seemed to be somebody sat, propped up against a wall. On closer inspection, it seemed to be a stuffed effigy, which was creepy. We got back into the car and continued, this was where it got super freaky...
The whole village was covered in scarecrows. Some sat on benches, some in shop windows, almost as if the village was populated by these terror-inducing puppets.
It turns out to be a festival of sorts in a town I believe called Feckenham. Where villagers make the scariest/weirdest looking scarecrows they can and leave them out for one weekend a year.
I live relatively close but had never heard of this. Terrifying at the time, I can tell you.
30. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Explanation
Driving around 1 AM thru a dirt road, a naked dude was walking by with only shoes on him.
29. Up in Flames
Drove by a house burning down with the family crying outside.
The firetrucks/ambulance arrived right as I passed.
28. Don’t Open Your Eyes
I was on a road trip with my wife at the time and her kid.
I believe this happened after we passed through New Mexico and went into Texas.
It was 3 AM and we come up over a large hill and everything is on fire.
Just fields and fields of fire. It looked like the apocalypse.
I had no clue what I was looking at, but my wife at the time and her kid were completely asleep, so I had no one that could bear witness to this, and I didn’t want to wake anyone up because...how’d you like it if someone woke you up and everything was on fire?
This went for several miles, but to this day, the closest thing I can think of was maybe a crop rotation? I don’t know. But the whole time I was driving through, it was like that picture of Ralph Wiggum going, “Heh, I’m in danger!”
27. Loose With the Moose
I was driving in Maine and there was a moose just hanging out on the highway. I just remember screaming and driving in the breakdown lane.
I never realized how big a moose was. I also don’t know why it was calmly standing there.
I’m not a fan of moose anymore.
26. Too Close for Comfort
I had something creepy happen to me a few months ago. I was driving home after seeing a play with a friend of mine, so it was probably around midnight. Also, I live in rural America, so there weren't any streetlamps or houses for the majority of the drive.
I was driving over this bridge and saw a car sitting on the side of the road turned on. I wasn't really concerned about it because it's a common spot for cars to pull off, even if it was kind of late. As I passed the car, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that they had pulled out behind me. Again, I didn't really think anything of it...until they began to tailgate me hard. While that behavior isn't unheard of, it tends to be rare since the road is curvy and a hotspot for deer.
I kept driving for a bit with this car right up on me which caused me to feel frustrated, confused, and strangely paranoid. Then, the car's headlights went out abruptly while I was nearing the end of a stretch of road surrounded completely by forest. This made me freak out because it was still super close behind me. Then, the car sped up and went around me, but almost immediately slowed down to a standstill in front of me. At this point I was so afraid, so I sped up, went around the car, and drove way too fast to get home and then sprinted inside and locked the door.
I didn't notice the car around my house, but I still feel worrisome about the entire ordeal and wish I knew why someone would drive like that.
25. No Witnesses
When I was a kid, living in Charleston, SC, my dad took me and my brother to a boat landing on a creek, right off of the Intracoastal Waterway to shoot off some fireworks we had left over from July 4th. This boat landing was up in the sticks in a place called Wadmalaw Island—very sparsely populated and pitch black at night.
When we pulled in the parking lot of the boat landing, around 11 PM, There was a 20-ish foot power boat nestled against the dock. The only people there were several guys wearing white boots and loading the back of an SUV with boxes from the boat. There was also a sports car, not sure what kind. We instantly got the heeby-jeebies, turned around and hauled ass.
About 30 seconds later, there was a car speeding towards us in the rear-view mirror. We were already going 80mph because my dad was convinced it was smuggling-related, and it was gaining very quickly on us.
We knew we couldn't outrun them—my dad drove an '81 Audi Fox—so before we went around a curve in the road, we killed the headlights and pulled into the driveway of someone's house, ducked down and waited...and that car that was chasing us flew by. It must have been going 100mph, easily. We sat there for a few minutes and saw the car going back to the boat landing. Things could have ended very differently.
In other words, me, my dad, and my brother witnessed a delivery of illegal substances, got chased, and barely escaped.
24. Are You Feeling It Now, Mr. Krabs?
I was driving very late at night through a pretty big park in NYC but not Central Park. Now, this was after an all-night film shoot for one of my friends in college and I had been up for a very long time.
As we were driving past a recreational building with the pool I see a person(?) galloping on all fours like a crab. They were moving so fast and I thought I had just been imagining it, but when I got home my boyfriend at the time who was sitting in the front seat asked me if I saw the crab person. It was super spooky, and I just can't explain it.
23. No Gentleman On the Road
This was an instance a few years ago where I wasn't scared at all, but it turns out I maybe should have been.
I was a teen, and my mom and I were going to pick up my dog from our dogsitter and family friend who lives in a very rural/woodsy area. It wasn't that late, maybe 8 PM, but it was pretty dark, because that's Finnish autumn for you.
We turn off the main road and take several turns onto roads that get progressively smaller. After about three of these turns, mom starts panicking that the car behind us is following us. I turn to look, but mom stops me and is all "Oh my god no, don't acknowledge them!"
I roll my eyes and try to calm her down, but she insists they're following us and is scared they're going to assault us since we're only two women. Amazingly, they keep taking the same turns all the way to the last tiny dirt road. Mom is freaking out at this point and I'm pretty much playing on my phone, refusing to engage in her paranoia.
Our dogsitter, a huge 6'2” tall guy, is waiting in the driveway and his brother is also doing yard/woodwork nearby. Mom pulls up and the car keeps going straight, so I finally see there's four young men in it. Mom starts telling the dogsitter about the "situation," while I stand there rolling my eyes. We stay in the driveway talking for about a minute before the car speeds by in the opposite direction. At this point I finally realize we could have actually been in danger; why would they have followed us to the middle of nowhere only to turn around as soon as they saw we weren't alone?
After that, I've taken my mom's concerns more seriously.
22. Grunt Work
We were driving down the mountain from a campsite on an old, dirt road, headed for town. It was Fourth of July weekend, so we had gone camping, and headed home just as it was getting dark. We go around a bend in the road and our headlights pick up on something HUGE hunkered down in the bushes on the side of the road about 30 feet in front of us.
We slow down and we're trying to figure out what it is, because it's moving. We let the truck crawl until we're about ten feet away; that's when our headlights pick up one very large eye. A bull moose stands up from the bushes and tears across the road in front of us, making that weird, grunting noise they use when they're grumpy.
21. It’s Free Real Estate…But at What Cost?
We were on a cross country camping trip in the summer and we had been camping every night for 2+ weeks in different campgrounds every night. We were using a AAA guidebook to find the best campgrounds and they were almost always full of people. We read about one that was very well rated, and FREE!
When we got there, it was late at night and we drove through looking for a good camp site. Problem was, we didn't see a single other person anywhere there. Dozens of spots, all empty. It was heavily forested and with it being so dark out and nobody else being there we all got a creepy vibe. I was only 12 or so, but I was begging my parents to not stay there because I was so creeped out. My parents agreed, and we went somewhere else. Never found out why it was empty or what the deal was, but I've never been that creeped out before for seemingly no reason.
20. The Approaching Army
I was driving through the mountains once on a very foggy night. A herd of elk becoming visible through the fog ahead of you is pretty scary.
19. Big Red Dot
Was driving home on a long and lengthy road at around 3 AM. Saw a weird light that was blinking in front of me. I get closer and realized it was an SOS signal, and me, being the curious dumb person, I am getting closer and start to slow down.
I realize that something may be a bit wrong, as the light is getting substantially closer without me moving much. I stop about 20 feet away from the light and notice a figure that seems to be running towards me with the light. And when it was about 10 feet away, the light went out, and there was no sign of it. I turned my high beams on, went in reverse to get a better view, but nothing. I have never been more confused/scared in my life.
18. Man of Mystery
Once when I was 19 I got off work early, at about 3 AM. I always took the back roads to avoid dealing with highways and really it was almost a straight road directly south of my job to get home. There aren't any street lights and once you go about two miles it turns into a dirt road with a few four-way stops.
On this night, it's foggy and visibility is crazy low so I'm only doing about 30 miles an hour. As I come up to one of the four-way stops, there's a house tucked back from the corner with an old lamppost in the middle of the yard, basically halfway between the intersection and the house. I had been intentionally looking for this lamppost as it was a good indicator of how far I'd gone down the road as the fog was very thick and I was a bit nervous about it.
I stop at the intersection and look over at the lamppost and see a man or a man like figure standing beside it. Just standing there. At 3 AM on a foggy night. Goosebumps from head to toe and the hair on the back of my neck stood straight out and I immediately felt unsafe. The figure never moved as I drove through the intersection, but the rest of the trip was dirt road with high rows of cornfield on both sides. I'm doing 30mph, terrified, heart racing, just KNOWING at any moment that figure is going to walk out from the cornfields into the road and I'm going to be murdered. Nothing did happen, and I made it home just fine, but to this day it still gives me chills thinking about that figure.
17. Why Waste Good Food?
In 1994, my mom and I were driving from Colorado to Montana for my uncle’s wedding. I was 4 years old and sitting in my car seat in the passenger’s seat. We were in a fairly nice white rental for the trip because our family car definitely couldn’t make the drive.
It was after midnight and dead quiet on this stretch of forest-y highway with no lights or houses. We were in between towns somewhere just before the Montana state line. My mom was going about 70 mph on one of those thin, winding roads without a care in the world when bam: a gigantic buck was standing in the middle of the road. She swerved, but the huge antlered thing jumped the same way, causing us to plow into it.
Its body spun down the right side of the car, knocking off the mirror and denting the heck out of the door all while releasing a barbaric forest animal death cry that was unlike anything I’ve heard since. My mom was obviously shaken, and sped off because A: what if it’s still alive? And B: we have to find a phone and report it, right? It took us about 20 minutes to get to the next town and find a bar. My mom ran in with me, both of us frantically crying, and all these burly men jumped up to help my mom—I assume they thought one of us was injured or in immediate danger.
My mom relays the events through tears and then they all look at each other ask, “Well... did you keep it?” My 5-foot-tall 105 lb. mom tells them that no, she did not drag a buck with trophy size antlers into the car with her 4-year-old. They all started high fixing and asked her for the closest mile marker to where she hit it because “That’s good meat.”
My mom used the bar phone to call the cops and when she gave them the same story, they also asked if she kept it for meat. She figured country people in Montana are starving weirdos and that we should push through because we only had a few hours of driving left.
We got to my uncle’s house around 4 AM and immediately went to bed. Just after 7 AM, someone starts banging on my uncle’s front door like they have metal fists. It’s the cops. They had gotten about two dozen calls in the half hour since the sun came up about “a murder car” in my uncle’s driveway. It’s our white rental, dotted in deer fur and absolutely CAKED in blood from the grill to the trunk with the right side of the car looking like a crunched-up tuna can.
We had no idea we were driving around in a nightmare-mobile. My mom is horrified and tells the cops about the deer, her call to the cops a couple hundred miles away, and how scary it was. The cops looked at my mom dead in the eyes and asked her if anyone had claimed the deer for meat. We’ve not been back to Montana since that trip.
16. Time Warp
A few years ago, I was driving alone at night through a shopping center and noticed things seemed sped up a bit, like when you watch a video at 1.25 speed. Everybody was walking and moving too fast. I actually shook my head trying to shake it off. A few minutes later I was fine.
I still don't have an explanation of what I experienced to this day.
15. Unwanted Delivery
My time to shine. Not unexplainable, but scary enough to make me release a brick. This happened to me three years ago. I used to throw newspapers for the Kansas City Star. And if you know anything about modern-day newspaper delivery, it isn't anything like little Timmy throwing a small bundle in the morning before school for his lunch money. I threw 1,500 papers a night. Yes. One thousand and five hundred freaking papers. And you do it at night. Night as in, pick your newspapers up at midnight and throw until 6 in the morning. You have to roll them yourself, stuff ads in them, the works. It is a terribly arduous job but pays well above minimum wage when you have a large route like I had.
Anyhow, one night I am throwing newspapers in a little place called Holt, Missouri. It’s about 45 minutes from Kansas City limits. I am throwing these out my window when suddenly I realize the same pair of headlights keeps passing me. It’s too dark out in the middle of nowhere to make out the vehicle well, but it was no doubt an SUV or Suburban. I stopped my car and watched it as it rolled past me and went a good quarter mile down the road before, sure enough, it makes a large awkward U-turn back around. It does it a few more times before I finish my papers on that stretch of road and turn around. This road was a completely flat and straight road for several miles with no light pollution. Only a few driveways for farmers and what have you that live out there.
As I am driving back I realize the blinding headlights of the vehicle pestering me are no longer moving towards my own. They are stopped in the middle of the road. With barely enough room to pass, I lay on the horn and scream a few choice words as I fly past them. I will forever regret doing that.
I was under the impression it was just a couple hillbillies drunk and wanting to start trouble. Even going 50 mph past them and going a ways down the road, I heard their tires screech and the engine rev. Whatever it was, they had it supped up. Quickly, the situation turned freaky. Very, very, freaky. They get on my tail within seconds. They ram my back end and the unmistakable pop of gunshots goes off. They shoot several times, one bullet busting out my back window and whizzing past my head. In a panic, I did the only thing that came to mind and screeched Tokyo drift style into a farmer’s field adjacent to his gravel driveway. The truck follows but seemed to hit something hard and went careening past the driveway into the other half of the field. I gun it down to this guy’s house.
I have never met him before. Perfect stranger. I haul ass out of my car and begin banging on the door like a madman, hoping and praying I don't get shot by either the person(s) in the killer mobile or the farmer I am waking up. The vehicle isn’t very far away from me when almost every light in the house turns on at once. The vehicle screeches to a stop and pulls around. I see that it is, in fact, an old-style Suburban, with massive wheels and no license plates. I almost got Deliverance-d. A large burly man wearing nothing but some boxers and several other guys greet me at the door, one brandishing a rifle. In the end, it all worked out. By chance, the man was getting married in the morning and all of his buddies were over for his bachelor party. Thank God not all of them got blackout drunk.
I filed a police report, yet nothing ever came of it. No other reports ever came of a beat-up Suburban with no license plates. I started carrying my pistol in my delivery car after that. My vehicle had seven bullet holes and the back bumper was missing. The thing messes me up the most is we NEVER found my bumper. Just, poof. They ram it, it disappeared. Maybe they took it as a souvenir. No doubt, for a second there I really thought I was going to die.
14. A Little Village, a Little Odd
About six years ago, my family and I moved from the West Coast to the Midwest. Dad and I drove while my mom and younger siblings flew. Dad was driving the U-Haul and I was driving the van that we had at the time. We stopped for dinner around 8 PM and realized we had about 6 hours of driving left and decided to push on through.
GPS took us a very weird way and had us exit on a rural route highway instead of staying on the interstate. So we are following this little windy road for what seems like forever. It’s just past midnight when all of a sudden, we are in this little town. Everything seems old and the houses feel like they are 10 feet from the road.
There’s not a SINGLE street light in this town so the only light is from our cars. Later, we get to the house and my dad doesn’t say anything about the town, so I assume it was my mind playing tricks on me. A few days later I tell the story to my mom and she tells me dad told her the exact same story but thought since I didn’t mention it that it must have been his mind playing tricks. I’ve tried to find this town again on many occasions and I have never had any luck.
13. Oh, Deer
One night my wife and I were driving home from a 2 AM Walmart trip along a particularly empty stretch of highway. We come up over the top of a long hill and as the car levels out we see two deer halfway across the road.
The deer that was leading the other broke into a sprint, the deer behind them froze, and I pumped the brakes all at the same time. Somehow. this was all timed perfectly such that our car threaded the needle gap between the two deer that formed from the time when the one in the back froze till we got to the deer (maybe 200 feet at 65 decelerating to 45 mph). Nobody was harmed, human or deer. The car wasn't even grazed.
We call that moment "The Deeracle.”
12. Field Trip
I cannot drive for medical reasons (blindness migraines triggered by flashing lights). I do, however, use Lyft/Uber a lot.
We once picked up a hitchhiking ghost. I swear, we picked up a hitchhiking ghost.
I always do the rideshare/pool options, because I'm cheap and don't care. I was on my way home late from the Arsenal bar in LA, and it's on the other side of the hill from where I live. We took the canyons back home.
Of course, the phone dings with "So-and-so will be joining your ride!"
No biggie. I'm sitting in the front seat because the back was already full. We drop those people off and go to pick up the new person. She gets in. Doesn't talk but doesn't pull her phone out either.
Now, we're arcing up through the canyon, and it's dead quiet and dark. Not too many other drivers out, and not a lot of homes. The girl finally pipes up and says "You can let me off here."
The map does show her destination is there, in the middle of a pitch black empty field. The driver asks her, "Are you sure?" in that tone of voice that says, "Ma'am, if you get murdered I get a one-star rating."
"Let me out here."
So, poor guy, he does. Pulls over, goes to get out to open the door for her, but before he can even get the seatbelt off, her door is open, and she's gone.
I mean, gone.
Gone, gone.
I don't know if she took off in a dead sprint and we missed her or if she dissolved into the mist.
All I know is that the back passenger door was open, there was suddenly no girl to be seen, and we were in the middle of an extremely creepy canyon road that was somewhere between Sunset and Laurel Canyon and both the driver and I were just super, super done.
I finished the ride in silence, got to my house, and went in without daring look behind me. Slept holding onto my cat.
11. Unexplained Flying Photo Op
Not scary, just unexplained. A few years ago, I was driving home and as I was exiting the freeway I saw this lit object bobbing around in the sky. It was fading from green to white, like some LED lights do, and was bobbing up and down in a figure 8/infinity symbol pattern. My first thought was that it was a hang glider with lights on but considering how it was practically over the freeway and it was dark that seemed unlikely.
As I pulled off the freeway I turned into a Target parking lot and drove to the back trying to keep it in sight and noticed the car in front of me was doing the same, and the passenger was trying to film it. I pulled up next to them and we exchanged a brief “Hey are you seeing what I’m seeing? Yeah? Cool.”
By the time the car stopped the glowing thing had disappeared—I have no idea what it was! I don’t think it was anything like a UFO an alien spacecraft, but I’ve certainly spent a lot of hours thinking about it. This was before drones got popular and easy to buy.
10. Nothing Gets Between Him and His Calvins
This was more bizarre than anything else, but a week ago I was coming home from work on a pitch-black state route when the edge of my headlights start lighting something up on the side of the road. As I'm getting closer, I just see this skinny dude posing with his hand on his hip, wearing nothing but a black thong or briefs, something draped over his shoulder, and what looked like a person in a drug rug or a large Baja-striped bag laying in front of him.
Ohio is an odd place at times.
9. The Final Neigh-Say
I was once driving down some country roads across Saddleworth Moor late at night in the dark. Saddleworth Moor was used by the infamous Moors Murderers in the ‘70s to hide the bodies of their victims—one remains unfound.
Up ahead of me was a stationary vehicle, in the middle of the road. Lights still on.
Starting to think all sorts...anyway, proceeded up to the car slowly and saw the most horrific sight, a horse had bolted from a nearby field and been struck by the car, it was on the windshield, blood everywhere.
Horse and driver were both dead.
8. The Writing on the Wall
I was driving in Detroit and a cool pink Cadillac or some other vintage American car came up behind me. The driver was very aggressive, speeding up and slowing down, trying to pass inappropriately. Eventually, they went for the pass, they didn’t have enough space and I had to swerve off to the side. I guess I continued driving now with this driver in front of me.
They brake checked me a few times before speeding off and I had a chance to read the license plate on the car, which said: “RIP KIM.”
My name is Kim.
7. Ask Him for Fashion Tips That Slim
I was driving home around 2 AM, and in the distance I see this tall, unnaturally skinny creature leaning towards the road. I can’t see any arms, just two legs and a very skinny, long body. I'm losing my mind thinking it’s an alien or monster, because it was too skinny to be human and it didn't have arms!
When I was just about to pass the creature, I finally saw the rest of it. Turns out it was a hitchhiker wearing a light-colored shirt and jeans. He was wearing a dark jacket which had camouflaged his arms and a lot of his body.
6. Mooooove Over
Scariest only because it nearly killed me:
Driving back from a late high school football game that I was covering, I was going through a very remote section of highway in farmland. I was a little zoned out, but the road was straight and wide for a while. I was going along at a good clip when I was vaguely aware that there was suddenly something in my way, but it was almost just a sense of it, not anything I could really see. Something just didn't look right, and I could tell hitting the brakes was not going to help, so I swerved into the opposing lane and passed something large that had been blocking my lane. I still didn't know what it was, but it was large.
I got turned around and went back slowly to see what the hell I had barely missed. When I got close enough to see better in my headlights, there they were, two very large, completely black cows. They were big enough that my hatchback would have been totally crushed if I'd hit them, and it could've easily been a fatal accident...for me and for the cows.
I called the local police and they sent a car out while I waited to make sure no one else hit them, even though the cows wandered off the roadway, and I hadn't seen another car for quite a while. When they got there, they knew who the cows belonged to and called the guy up all pissed off because this apparently happened more frequently than they liked.
Darn cows nearly killed me.
5. Wheels of Despair
While working one night, was called to attend a head-on car accident with three people killed.
The driver of one vehicle wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and the force of the impact had embedded his steering wheel in his forehead. His best mate was in the seat next to him and was conscious and making the most horrific shrieks. Will never forget that image or that sound.
Getty Images
4. Miss in Distress
About 20 years ago, I was driving home from a late wedding DJ gig. I was driving south on a major interstate which was relatively empty at 2:30 AM or so. At one point, in the "narrows," the retaining walls on each side get very high as the highway snakes underneath overpasses.
Out of nowhere, a young woman jumped down from the retaining wall onto the highway and directly in front of my car. I hit the brakes hard, came to a complete stop, and nearly slammed into her. She looked up, ran to my passenger door and got in looking terrified. She looked between 16 and 20 years old, long blonde hair, and her clothes looked a little dirty. Not homeless dirty, but like she'd fallen down a few times. "I just need to call my mom," she said.
I tried to calm her down and began moving back down the highway and behind me about 50 feet, I see another figure jump down onto the highway out of my rear-view window. I didn't mention this to her and she didn't look back or see the other person. I sped up and went about four or five exits south. She kept saying over and over, "I just need to call my mom." This was before most people had cell phones, so I told her I would take her to one of the 24-hour grocery stores and she could call her mom. I asked her if she needed money for a pay phone, what was wrong, etc. She said nothing other than, "I just need to call my mom."
I pulled up to the grocery store and stopped. She got out quickly, but not running, then ducked into the grocery. She didn't say a word to me or look back. I pulled into the gas station across the street and called 911 and told them the entire story and let them know the young woman was inside the grocery store and a description of her.
I have no idea what happened. I don't know why she did that, what happened to her, who the figure behind us on the highway was—nothing. Really made me super uneasy. I think I did the right thing. I would have tried to do more, but she seemed really fragile emotionally and somewhat afraid of me—I am a guy—so I wanted her to just be able to get to where she needed to be.
3. Bloody Coincidence
Was driving with some friends at around 2 AM, rainy cold night, along a winding section of road with a steep drop off to the river below on one side. We pass a small pull-off and notice a car with no lights on.
As we drive by we catch a glimpse of a person standing next to it, and as the headlights hit him we see his shirt is covered in blood all down the front.
We don’t stop but turn around and drive back slowly. I roll down my window as we approach, and he just stands there, blood all over his shirt and pants. His car looks fine, couldn’t have been a crash. Out the window I ask if he’s ok, and over the pounding rain and roar of the river below I hear the most distant and sorrowful “I’m fine.” Gave me chills, I don’t reply and slowly drive off as my buddy calls the cops.
About half an hour later we drive by again and there is an ambulance and a couple cruisers, turns out the guy slit his wrists and was going to jump off into the river, cold rainy and pitch black. Scary where your mind can take you...
2. Don’t Go Into the Light
A couple of friends and I were coming home from a late afternoon/night hike a few weeks ago, and we decided to pull over near a run-down rest stop, so my friend could use the bathroom and the rest of us could stretch our legs. It was maybe 8 PM, and it was winter here, so it was pitch black. This area is just thick trees and bushland, so there’s no houses or campgrounds or whatever around. I believe there used to be, but they moved the campground somewhere else because it’s on the side of a mountain and it was too dangerous.
As we were all getting back into the car, I felt sort of...uneasy. I didn’t want to mention it because I didn’t want my friends to make a big joke about it, but someone else spoke up and said they felt uncomfortable too, and that we should get out of there. We all agreed and as soon as my friend started the car, these lights flickered on in the middle of the trees. We kind of stared at them for a moment—I want to say there was six or seven of them. Two of them were higher than the others, and then the rest were in a line below them. They kind of bobbed, like somebody was holding a torch or something, but they were way brighter than a torch.
We started reversing out of the car park, the car still facing these lights, when suddenly they just sped at us through the trees. I don’t know how to explain it, it looked like they were zooming towards us super-fast. We were terrified, and my friend just flung us out and got the hell out of there.
I’d have just told myself it was people in the woods, except when we were driving down the road at 60km/hr, we could still see them trailing behind us in the trees, keeping pace. After a couple of seconds, they just disappeared, and the rest of the way home was uneventful as ever.
We have absolutely no idea what that could have been. As far as I know, you can’t get vehicles into the area since it’s overgrown and dangerous, and I don’t know that any person can keep up with a car like that. I’m not a big believer in aliens and UFOs and stuff but to be honest, if you told me that’s what we saw, I wouldn’t be surprised.
1. Head to Head
My friend and I used to go drive around our little country town at all times of the day; we'd chat, listen to music, and just sort of drive around for no real reason.
One night, we decided we were bored and that we should just take a drive around the back country roads and just chill out. The roads were just two-way, one lane each, with a speed limit of 45-55, I think. So, we pull out from my parents’ house and start cruising down a normal road that we take. We pull up to the normal 4-way stop and then keep heading out toward the country where the road gets a little bit rougher. On top of this, because it's actually out in the country, there isn't really any light aside from either the moon or the few houses that you pass on the way out.
So, on the way out, I start getting this really weird feeling. I've driven this road tons of times before at night and I've never had this feeling before. It felt like a stone in my stomach along with some chills that were going up my legs and my arms. Around the time that I started feeling this, there was a car coming toward us going the opposite direction—we were maybe a mile or so away from one another, probably a bit more than that. My friend and I were still just talking and not really paying much attention to the car coming toward us.
As it got closer, I remember feeling particularly uncomfortable and the conversation between my friend and I just sort of stopped abruptly. The car that was coming toward us was basically right in front of us at this point and it was about 2-3 yards in front of my car before it flipped its headlights off and veered into our lane, aimed directly at my car. This was all split second; back country road, pitch black, and headlights coming toward us just cut off completely.
I, by some miracle, managed to swerve to the right, not too violently, to get out of the way. My friend and I were shaken. I checked my mirrors and just saw the car flip its headlights back on and continue driving from the way we came. I think my friend and I had 5-6 smokes between us on the drive home and we decided to cut the drive extremely short because of this weird stuff.
I still have no valid explanation other than maybe it was some drunk dude in a car just messing around with us. Even writing this, I still get heavy chills. It was pretty wild.
Source:
