There’s nothing like working the night shift. For some reason, when the sun goes down, all sorts of weird and scary happenings come up. From strange noises and sightings to intense and brutal encounters, these workers have seen it all. Keep reading for some chilling tales of scary experiences people who worked the night shift had that will make anyone happy to see the light of day.
1. Dodging The Dog
There is a legend in trucking of "seeing the dog". It is like seeing a black cat or having one cross in front of you, and it is a sign of bad luck in the trucking industry. Most of the time, the saying goes, "If you see the black dog, you’re about to die. Get off the road ASAP"! I didn’t believe it—until it happened to me.
One day, I was out driving somewhere in the desert of Arizona on I-10. It was around 3 or 4 AM. I had been driving for around eight hours and had already taken my 30-minute break around four hours before. While I was driving, no one was around, and I hadn't seen a car or truck in more than 20 miles. Then, I saw what looked like a shadow figure off in the right-hand emergency lane. I shook it off, thinking it was just my eyes playing tricks on me.
So I lit up a smoke, opened the window to let the cool air in, and sat up straight in my chair to try and focus. I kept thinking to myself, "Only two or three more hours and I'm done for the day and can get some sleep". About five to ten minutes later, I saw the same figure shaped like a wolf with an arched-up back. It was all black without any eyes, teeth, or anything.
I turned on my bright lights—which was like lighting up a football field—and the figure was gone. I sat there thinking, “What on earth”? I shook my head and pat myself on the cheeks to wake myself up. I kept on driving—but my nightmare wasn’t over yet.
About 30 minutes later, the same thing happened, except the figure was lurching towards the middle of the lane. I was the only one on the road. No one was behind me or in front, and no one had passed me from the other side in about 15 minutes. As the figure lurched towards the middle, I saw what looked like yellow eyes looking straight at me.
I hit the brakes hard without locking them up and swerved a little. I was sitting there screaming and cursing. I almost went off the side of the road and put that 78,000-pound truck and trailer in the ditch.
I pulled over on the side of the highway. I popped my brakes, stood up inside the truck, and took a few deep breaths, trying to rationalize what I just saw. Then I remembered the folklore about "seeing the dog". I said, “I'm going to bed at the next rest stop". I rolled up to the next rest area about 25 miles down the road and called it quits for the night. To say it scared me is an understatement. I never saw that figure again.
2. How ‘Bout Them Apples?
I was working day shift on a drilling rig in the middle of nowhere. It was hours away from the closest small town, out in the bush. The rig manager came to me and told me I had to switch to nights on "boiler watch" to supervise the new guy and make sure all the assigned tasks were completed. He failed to complete his to-do list the night before, so now I was on nights.
I worked with this kid, and he seemed good. I thought he had a solid work ethic, so I couldn’t understand why he failed the previous night. We completed all the work inside, and then it was time to get a few things done outside. I told him, "Let's get after oil changing that loader". He said that he couldn't work outside in the dark. I laughed and told him we were going to do that oil change.
He was scared, showing real fear, so I asked him why. He told me that he had done everything asked of him inside and went to start work outside on the buildings on the lease. He got hungry, so he grabbed his lunch. He left an apple on the truck's hood and walked away for a few minutes. When he came back, the apple was still on the hood of the truck, but there was now a bite out of it.
He looked on the ground, and human shoeprints were leading out of the trees, to the truck, and back into the trees. Because we were in the middle of nowhere, there was no way someone should be out there in the bush in that temperature at that time of night. I start thinking. That meant somebody was watching him from the darkness of the trees and took the time to mess with him. This person was either the funniest guy alive or a super strange bushman.
Looking at where we were, the chances of him being the funniest guy ever were slim. So now we had a strange man in the bush watching us. As a 6'4” tall 260lb rig hand, I was weirded right out by this story. It sent a shiver up my spine when I realized how that must have gone down. We went out, and the footprints were still there. We changed the oil, but we both had pipe wrenches in case we had a visitor. It still creeps me out to this day.
3. With A Wave Of A Hand
I used to work in a large department store. Every year before the Thanksgiving/Black Friday sales, we would go in on Wednesday afternoon and work until midnight to prepare the store. The main lights would all go off after the store's regular closing hours, leaving us working by just a few dim bulbs dotted throughout the store, which made for a lot of spooky dark corners.
One year we had a skeleton crew, just three or four other people and me to do the whole store, so we split up. I was out on the floor, our manager was in her office, and my other coworkers were either in the back or in their designated areas. At some point, I looked up and across the floor to the opposite side of my area.
The store was mostly one big open space, and I could easily see over the tops of all the shelves and clothing racks. As I was looking across the space, I saw an arm reach up over one of the racks and wave. It was a creepy sight because whoever it was would have had to crouch behind one of the racks to avoid being seen and reach their arm up over the top.
I could see so much of their arm—all the way to the shoulder—so I don't know how anyone could have managed that. I waited to see if it was one of my co-workers, but I didn't see anyone come out of that section. I knew none of my co-workers should have been in my area, and we all certainly had better things to do than hide behind racks waving at each other.
I called a co-worker and asked her to go with me to that area, but we didn't find anyone. I chalked it up to being tired and my eyes playing tricks on me in the dimly lit store, but it was seriously creepy.
4. Things Did Not Compute
I was working in a hospital late at night building a new cabinet for IT. I was on a deserted ward; all the patients were three floors below, and the only access to the ward area was via a smartcard RFID onto a door fob INSIDE the doors. So, only people inside the ward could let anybody in. The ward layout was completely open without any beds in it, and the only cupboard was the one I was in, with the door propped open with a fire extinguisher.
I was working on installing the UPS into the rack, and the door to the cupboard shut. I thought, "I must have kicked the fire extinguisher or something". I put the UPS down, opened the door, and the fire extinguisher was gone. I looked around, and the area was deserted. There was no noise, and I didn't hear anything. The fire extinguisher had just disappeared into the ether.
I called security because I was potentially alone with someone who had just lifted a fire extinguisher and might want to off me with it. I asked them to check the cams. What they saw was chilling. Sure enough, some blurry object—according to them—swooped and picked up the fire extinguisher and ran off to the left. There were only two doors in and out of the ward, and you needed a smartcard to get in and out.
Mine was still on my person, so whoever—or whatever—it was must have had one or some kind of device to spoof the RFID chip reader. I had security run the access control logs, and sure enough, an entry in the list corresponds with roughly the time the fire extinguisher disappeared. I never got an answer about what happened before leaving to work elsewhere.
5. Something Was Lighting Up My Life
When I worked as a nursing aid in a hospital, there was a night when one of the call lights in one of the empty rooms kept getting triggered. I walked into the room and turned it off. The room felt eerie. I just wanted to get out of there. I walked back to the nursing station, and it went off again.
It happened two or three times; it was the only time I had experienced that while working there. It was an older hospital. Nights were mostly quiet, but some nights, you'd hear sounds or think you saw something in the shadows. It definitely had an eerie vibe.
6. When Darkness Fell
While I was stationed on an aircraft carrier in Japan, I worked the night shift. The scariest moment was when I was down on the mess decks, and all of a sudden, the ENTIRE ship went dark and stopped moving. The next thing I knew, the skipper, XO, RO, and a bunch of officers came SPRINTING down towards the reactor spaces. I was brand new onboard and was absolutely terrified.
7. The Man In The Minivan
I worked at a Smashburger in Mesa, Arizona. We had two different female employees request not to close anymore. When I heard why, I was chilled to the bone. The first one, who was the store assistant general manager, said that she was leaving after a long Saturday night close. It was pouring rain, and only her car and another were in the parking lot. As she walked to her car, the guy in the other car got out and just stared at her as she got into hers.
The second employee—a 16-year-old—shared an even scarier encounter. She said a dude came in and asked her when she was off. Luckily a manager was up front and heard and quickly told the dude that we aren’t allowed to give that information, even about ourselves. He sat in the dining room without ordering for a few minutes and then left. That night, this girl was followed home by a car.
She said she did the four lefts thing, so she was certain she was being followed. She called her dad and had him waiting outside the house—armed—when she pulled in, and the car kept driving. The first girl didn’t get a good look at the guy, but both reported him having a gray minivan. On my first night closing at the store, I was the last person there.
It was well into the morning, and my stomach dropped when I was about to walk outside. I saw a gray minivan parked right next to my car. The authorities were called but, unfortunately, couldn’t do anything except tell him to leave and let him know we would press charges if he came back, as it was technically private property. As far as I know, he’s never been back, but it was scary.
8. This Was No Bump On A Log
I would watch a log yard at night. I’ve seen a lot of scary things, but one incident took the cake. I saw movement, so I went to check it out. The manager had taken in a few stray dogs, and I couldn’t find them. I looked in the dog house, and ALL of them were in one, smooshed against the back wall and terrified. At that point, I knew I had a problem.
So, I scanned the hillside and spotted a mountain lion watching me. As I walked back to the building, it kept pace and looked like it was going to pounce at any moment. I went into a room with no windows and stayed there all night.
9. Oh, Deer!
I leave for work around 2:30 AM every morning. One morning, I stepped out my front door, not really paying attention. I sensed a presence, and I heard something shuffling. I looked up, and a deer was close enough to me that I could touch it if I wanted to. Not realizing it was a deer at first, I yelled out in fear, and the animal ran off.
10. Baby, It’s Cold Outside
I went to work at 7 PM and left to go home at 5 AM. It was January in Minnesota, so I was dressed warm enough for 7 PM. Although I was able to take a bus to work, there were no buses at 5 AM. This was also 25 years ago, so there were no cell phones. My walk home was five miles away, which was never a problem. However, it was the first winter walking to this apartment from this job.
It required walking down a bridge that was 1/3 mile long over the Mississippi River. Minus five degrees Fahrenheit isn't really a big deal when you're used to it, but it was windy and dark out. Walking across a massive bridge over an enormous river meant even faster and colder winds. There were no businesses for a mile before the bridge, but there was a gas station on the other side. One particularly cold day, I made it halfway across the bridge and I realized I was in big trouble. I knew there was no turning back. I'm pretty sure the only thing that saved me was running across the other side of the bridge and huddling behind the wall that offered some protection from the wind.
I was able to warm up for a few minutes and then run as fast as I could for a few minutes and huddled back down again until I felt like I could move again. I made it across and to the gas station. I spent 30 minutes there warming up, drinking coffee, etc., and made it the rest of the way home. I had minor frostbite over most of my face, and my skin was peeling.
11. He Didn’t Have Any Pull
We had several armed holdups. One time, there was a guy with a sword trying to get in. There was a magnetic lock on the door, so people couldn't get in unless we buzzed them in or they gave the door a really hard pull. I had pulled it open with brute force a few times when I locked myself out. This guy was pulling on the door and telling us to let him in, but we wouldn’t. Thankfully, he didn't pull hard enough.
12. Sitting Pretty
I work the night shift in a hospital. One night I was heading to the ER, and on my way, I passed the walkway leading to the attached clinic, which was closed. It was a pretty wide hallway with comfy chairs along the side at the end of the hall, just before the clinic. The lights were out because it was three in the morning. As I walked by, I glanced down the hall. I realized someone was sitting in one of the chairs.
I jumped out of my skin and made a rather comical squawking noise. When the figure in the chair laughed, I realized it was a security guard on break. Once my heart started beating again, I yelled out to him, “Paul, what are you doing sitting in the dark like a serial killer”! To which he responded, “What? They’re comfy”!
13. The Blind Man Speaks
I work the night shift at a maximum security psychiatric hospital. Scary experiences come with the territory. The hospital I work at was built in the 1950s as an asylum. The concrete walls are cold, and sounds echo throughout with relative ease. The pressure differentials between units and the main hall create a haunting howling sound as air escapes through the cracks under the doors.
We typically keep the lights out to encourage patients to sleep through the night. I walk the halls alone to check that everyone is still breathing. I've heard people laughing to themselves and whispering conversations to someone unseen by me. I've even run to emergencies where other patients have snuck into another's room to beat them violently. But the scariest thing was when I was doing my rounds, and I came across one of our blind patients.
This patient had cut their eyes out years ago, looking for relief from hallucinations, which is why they were blind. The worst part was that it didn't make the hallucinations go away. Now all he could see were the haunting visions that brought him to it in the first place. This patient had been with us for some time, and every night I walked by his room, he was in the same position.
He was standing facing the wall with his back to the door. No matter how long I stand there, he doesn't move. This is nothing new as I had seen a number of patients with catatonia before; they just stand or sit there with a blank or sometimes fearful expression and react to nothing. One day, I passed by his room—walking quietly so as not to wake any patients— and peeked in through the window.
He was standing facing the wall, and just before I was about to continue with my rounds, I saw his head turn like he had heard a voice. He turned around with his empty eye sockets, looked at me, addressed me by name, and asked, "Is that you"? I nearly pooped myself. I didn't even know this patient knew my name let alone that he could tell somehow that it was ME standing there. I probably should have reassured him that I was real, but at that moment, I was so scared that I just kept walking. The fact he literally never spoke to me before that chilled my bones.
14. Driven To The Brink
The scariest thing I experienced was my drive home after working a grueling 12-hour shift four to five days in a row. My drive is about 45 minutes and is mainly on the interstate. I can’t really describe how scary it is when your brain goes, “Wow. I’m coming up on that car really fast. I should probably slow down. I mean, now. Wait, now! SLOW DOWN”! That doesn’t include the days your eyes refuse to stay open, or you get somewhere and realize you have no memory of doing it.
15. Shadow Dancing
I had been working two full-time jobs and riding a bicycle to both of them. I was sleep-deprived and on my way home in the middle of the night. I could see the streets, but there were a lot of shadows. As I was moving, the shadows started to move. They were like water in some places and almost dancing in others. This went on for a few minutes until I got home.
I was sweating; I just collapsed and slept for a full day. I don’t think it was anything more than a hallucination, but to see those shadows move scared the daylights out of me.
16. Whistling In The Dark
I lived in a rural part of Oklahoma, about 20 miles east of Oklahoma City. Most of the houses were farms separated by acres—if not miles of farmland—between houses. I was working for a web hosting company, and my shift was 6 PM to 3 AM. One September night, I was driving home exhausted because I had just worked overtime, and it was about 3:30 AM.
I turned down a road that I don't usually take. As I got further away from the city, the darker and more wooded the road got. I paid no attention as I was tired. I had my headlights on high and turned down a road headed toward my house. After a while, I felt like I had been driving for a long time down this road with no intersection, but I kept going anyway.
Suddenly I saw something on the road, so I stopped and looked. It was an entire tree branch. No one could have just run over or avoided it because it was huge. Not thinking logically, I thought, “There haven't been any storms or winds; why is there a tree on the road"? I got out of my car and started trying to move this branch. I had no idea what a terrible mistake I’d made.
I thought I heard something, so I turned the car off and listened. It was someone whistling, in the woods, on land that had no houses for miles. I started to get in my car quietly, and the whistling stopped. Then, I heard footsteps STOMPING and getting louder. I turned the car on, threw it in reverse, and slammed the gas down until I got back to the main road. I still haven't been back down that road.
17. Nothing To Sneeze At
It was 3 AM in the general medicine ward. A 65-year-old dude left his room and walked to the kitchenette to get some water. Walking back to his room, he stopped and made penetrating eye contact with all of us at the nursing station. He then sneezed and catastrophically tore his esophageal varacies. He began to spout blood out of his mouth like a fire hydrant.
We were able to slam him with a medication named Midaz before he drowned in his own blood. I will never forget his look of desperation. It was terrifying.
18. One Angry Customer
My first call center job was overnight e-commerce. Some dude got extremely mad about something, gave our exact address, and said he'd be "waiting outside for us". The authorities were notified. For a few weeks, we were only allowed to go outside for breaks or to our cars in at least pairs, with a manager watching the break area and parking lot from the door.
19. Off-Road Ridin’
I worked as a night auditor at a small 60-room hotel off the interstate. One night, I was sitting at the desk doing paperwork, and I saw a car turn off the road into the parking lot of the doctor’s office next door. Except the car didn’t actually turn into the parking lot. It turned into the ditch along the side of the parking lot, going about 15mph, and proceeded to yee-haw up into the parking lot.
The car then drove over to the building, and the lights went off. I watched for about half an hour before the car’s lights came back on, and the car proceeded to turn around and drive off the parking lot, down the 15 foot high embankment, and into our parking lot. It then disappeared around the building—but it wasn’t over yet. Twenty minutes later, a middle-aged woman entered the lobby and checked into her room while trying VERY, VERY HARD to pretend she was not plastered.
20. Lurking In The Shadows
I used to be a supervisor on a midnight crew of a chain restaurant. I was the only man with a crew of women in their 20s who looked to me like a big brother. One night, one of the girls went outside on break and saw a black SUV sitting in a dark corner of the parking lot with the lights off, just watching the place. I looked at the cameras; they had positioned themselves in a blind spot where we couldn’t see them unless we went outside.
Whoever was in the vehicle had it very well thought out. We had no idea how long they had been sitting there or what they were up to. We eventually found out that it was one of the owners and someone from upper management. They travel from store to store and watch how quickly the drive-thrus are taken care of, etc. They would take a different vehicle every time and hide in different places around the lot.
Everyone found it creepy, and I once came close to calling the authorities on them.
21. They Beat Him To A Tee
I was a receptionist at a golf club. One night, a couple of suspicious-looking guys came and purchased a day ticket. They were there for the whole day playing golf, drinking, and so on, not causing any trouble. Another frequent customer started hanging out with them and purchasing drinks for them. At the end of the shift, my friend and I were closing when the three guys—totally plastered—arrived to see if I could change some cash.
We did not process any cash transactions. That’s when things took a dark turn. Suddenly, one of the young guys started asking about his money and accused the third guy of taking it. While I sent my friend to call security, the two young guys suddenly started beating the older guy. They just tossed him to the ground and severely beat him up until some maintenance guys took them off. Then, they grabbed his bag and found the money. They left and never came back again.
22. Ninja-Go!
I used to clean office buildings after hours. One night I went out the back to take out the building’s trash. As I finished tossing the bag in the dumpster, I turned around and saw a man dressed head to toe in a Ninja suit not even two feet behind me. It was complete with one of those straight, single-edged Japanese tantõ.
This guy, without a sound and very quickly, snuck right up on me and was just standing there, hand on the blade at his back, staring at me. Confused and slightly unsure if I was about to be taken out, I let out a soft, "Wha...what the [heck]”? The urban Ninja then proceeded to Naruto run around my car a couple of times then disappear into the night, never to be seen again. I survived.
23. The Night The Lights Went Out
I used to work security as one of my first jobs. Most of it was events, but they would pick up the random location gig. I got this overnight job watching a gate where they were building a new major road. There wasn’t supposed to be any night construction due to the residential area, but some of the contractors were having stuff dropped off at night or using it as a through fare.
I wasn’t supposed to stop them. I was just supposed to take the plate number and company name of any trucks that came through. There was nothing on the first night, so I slept. On the second night—just as I was about to fall asleep—a truck pulled up, saw me parked in the shadows, and left. I decided to pull my car into the light so that maybe if they saw me, it would stop them from even pulling down the street.
Then, things started to get odd. I started hearing a sound like a Star Wars TIE fighter. Drones weren’t everywhere back then, and even though I was about a half mile from a major Army base, that sound wouldn’t make you think “drone”. That high-pitched electric motor whine just wasn’t normal. I couldn’t see anything. I just kept hearing this alien sound close, then far, and close again.
There was some sort of industrial park down in the canyon they were attaching this road to, and the exterior lights were on. Then, they just went off one by one while that sound seemed like it was in that area. When the sound went away, all the lights came back on. A few minutes later, that sound was back on my side of the canyon.
It wasn’t a foggy evening. I couldn’t see anything in the sky. That sound was getting louder, and I started to get a little freaked, so I locked myself in my car. That drone-like sound got really loud, seemingly right above me, and the streetlight I was under went out. Whatever it was, it pushed some air because I could feel it hitting my car. Yet, I still couldn’t see anything out the windows. It got really loud for a minute, then silence and the streetlight came back on. I told my boss to reassign me the next morning.
24. Shark Bait
I'm a commercial diver and was on the night shift a few years ago. We were out on an urgent repair job in northwestern Australia. It was a 24/7 operation until it was repaired. Usually, the night shift was fine as there is no difference between day and night in black water. I was on my dive rigging up the collar for installation and felt something hit me hard and knock me over.
I turned around, but there was nothing to tell the dive supervisor, so we decided to continue. About five minutes later, I saw what knocked me over—I had no idea what kind of danger I was in. It was a massive hammerhead shark 4–5 meters long. They get attracted to electromagnetic fields, and we were lit up with communications in our helmets and video systems. We called the dive and went up.
The way up was the worst because we couldn't see anything. The shark would come out of nowhere, swim directly towards us, then, at the last moment, turn away. I felt very helpless, and even though hammerheads are not the most dangerous sharks, when they are swimming directly at you at night, it's enough.
25. Heads Up!
I worked the night shift at a gas station/truck stop in Tucumcari, NM. I had another guy working with me who ran the diesel side while I worked the gas side. We had a guy come in at around 1 or 2 AM and just looked at stuff in the aisles for a while before he left. We didn't think twice about him. At 6 AM, when I got off, I drove home past a popular convenience store.
There had to have been 30 cruisers in the parking lot. There weren’t even 30 in Tucumcari, so where they came from, I have no idea. Later, I found out the disturbing truth about that night. Sometime during the night, the store had been held up, and the clerk had been taken into the cooler, tied up, and beheaded. A few hours later, I was awoken by the state troopers and asked if I had seen anything suspicious during the night.
The guy who came into our store and left was the only thing I could think of. The officers took a copy of our security footage which led them to a suspect who was convicted for the grizzly stick-up. It was so hard to go to work the next day. We assumed that the guy was going to hold us up, but didn't want to deal with two clerks, so he left and hit the other store instead.
26. Pumped Up And Ready To Go
I worked at a gas station on the night shift for three weeks. A car that was being chased by law enforcement crashed into one of the pumps, took out another pump, and that mess came in through the front of the store. The driver somehow managed to get out of the car—that was on fire and in the store—and was still able to make an attempt at running away on foot. The store was destroyed.
27. Bus-ted!
I worked the graveyard shift at a school bus company. I lived in a place where it was commonly -20°F or colder. We were expected to clear the snow, throw salt, start, fuel, and stage the buses. There was a hole in one of our perimeter fences, and management knew about it. They decided that the horrible lighting and obsolete CCTV cameras were enough of a deterrent.
One night it was close to -45°F with the windchill factor. It was so cold that even the winter blend diesel fuel was not wanting to flow very well. It took forever to get through the fleet, but we got it done. Usually, at that point, we were expected to do a walkthrough on the lot as a security measure. When it was my turn to take a pass, I heard something fumbling about near one of the buses.
I figured it was a rabbit or a squirrel and didn’t think to be on guard. As I walked past the back corner of the bus, I saw a guy in chest waders and a hoodie with a straw hat on in the process of siphoning fuel from one of the buses. I lit him up with a 1500-lumen flashlight and told him to kick rocks as I radioed the supervisor to call the authorities.
The guy jumped up and started screaming incoherently at me, and I realized the dude was high out of his mind. I began to get ready to take off as he started to charge at me with a tire iron. The guy took three steps, slipped, and split the back of his head open on the pavement. He jumped back up and took off through the hole in the fence.
The authorities showed up and took my statement. The boss came in and was not surprised that something had happened. At that point, he told me that company policy strictly forbade us to have a weapon of any kind on our person while on the property. He then stated he couldn't say anything if he didn’t know and wouldn’t let me get crucified if I had to use one.
28. Out Of The Orb-inary
I was driving down I-40 from about midnight to 1 AM through the Mojave Desert. I was doing pretty well, feeling good, and was about six hours into my shift. I had just passed the Twenty Nine Palms base out there. This was during the pandemic, so there weren't many cars or trucks on the road. The night was cool and brisk.
I looked up out into the sky—and what I saw took my breath away. There were two orbs of lights staying about 50–75 yards away from my truck, out in the desert, off the road. I slowed down, and the orbs slowed down with me. I was wondering if it was a plane or a drone, but there were no blinking or flashing lights on them. They were just solid orbs of really bright light.
I looked out from my truck and put my full high beams on, but I didn’t see anything. There were no animals, no trees, no cars—nothing. The lights followed me for about eight miles. Then as soon as I sped back up, they just disappeared. They didn’t fly or fade away; they were just gone in the snap of a finger. It was the weirdest thing I had seen in a long time.
29. Easy There Rider
I was on my motorcycle. I was tired, but I figured a 30-minute ride home shouldn’t be a problem. I blacked out on the motorcycle while it was running at least 65–70mph. The next thing I knew, I was facing down, looking at the fuel tank of my bike, which was still running at high speed. I didn’t know how long I had been out. It was enough to scare me. If I had passed out for a few more seconds, I might have been a goner. After that incident, I always grab a cup of coffee before departing and town hop back home if I feel tired.
30. What Goes Up Must Come Down
Our cargo elevator can hold up to 20,000 lbs, but for some reason, the cable snapped and sent the elevator plummeting 40 feet to the ground with pallets that were loaded down with chicken parts—thighs, wings, etc. It came down so hard that the force of the chicken busted out of the pallets, ripped the metal gate off the elevator, and sent chicken pieces flying over 100 feet away.
31. What Women Are Blade Of
I worked for a local gas station in the town I used to live in. I was on the closing shift and was by myself. I’m a female, and at the time, I was only 20. A customer had purchased some items from me and was making suggestive comments about my body. I tried to ignore them and played him off by saying I had a boyfriend and was not interested.
I was closing up the shop, and it was about 12:30 AM. I locked the doors and waited for my ride. I was standing by the light pole when I saw a figure getting closer to me from across the field. I started to freak out and called my ride several times to see when they would get there, but surprisingly, there was no answer.
The dude came up to me, and I recognized who it was. My heart stopped. He tried to touch me, but luckily, I had my blade on me. I started screaming and pointing it at him. He finally ran off after I almost stabbed him. It was one of the scariest moments in my life right there. I ended up not showing up to work that following day and tried to quit. They wouldn’t accept me quitting, so I got moved to the store that was closest to my place.
32. Hiss Out Of Water
I was stretching my legs from the office. I was taking a night walk down a dark park near the hospital. Suddenly, I heard this hissing noise in front of me. The noise got louder and closer. Then, in the bushes right next to me, there was a loud, confusing hissing. My heart was racing, and I turned to run before I realized it was the sprinkler system.
33. What’s In The Van, Man?
While working, I was helping someone take their stuff to their car since they were older. They had the stereotypical white van, which was fine in itself since they’re common where I lived. However, when he opened the van doors, I made a disturbing discovery.
He had a mattress and handcuffs in the back of the van. It was probably nothing, but if I hadn’t peed my pants before, I was peeing them now. This scared me to no end.
34. Here Kitty, Kitty
I was a milkman during college. This was before cell phones. At 2 AM, I was adjusting the load in the truck on an elementary campus. A huge mountain lion was walking from my truck to the school. I stared at it for a few minutes and concluded nobody would believe me. There were no kids harmed the next day, so it must have moved on.
35. It Was A Real Gas
I was working at a paper mill doing a shutdown, and my crew went to grab parts for the conveyor we were fixing. I stayed behind alone in the warehouse. Fifteen minutes later, a guy came running in and said, “You’re still here?! Uhhh, there’s a gas leak. We need to leave”. The building was filling with chlorine gas, and I was about five minutes away from coughing up blood and biting it.
36. Seeing Double
I work at 4 AM. One day as I drove to work, I noticed a figure on the median. It was a dude, with a blue sweater and jeans, with his back to me. It was nothing out of the ordinary. He was just standing there, not moving, but I was also doing 55mph, so I just caught a glimpse of him. I remember thinking how easily he could have jumped onto the road, and I could have hit him.
He was that close. The thought went away immediately when I noticed a very similar figure on the median—on the same road—about a mile past the first one. He was dressed in similar colors—blue sweater and jeans—standing just as close to the median, not moving. I'm sure it could easily be explained, but it freaked me out at the moment.
37. Don’t Follow The Leader
I was on my way home at 3 AM when a blizzard hit. I couldn't see more than five feet in front of me and had about a 20km drive home down the highway. It was so dark that I drove off the road where someone else had whose tracks I was following. Luckily, they must have made it out—and so did I—but that was the most stressful hour and a half drive ever. If I couldn't get out, I would have likely been there for hours before someone would be able to get me.
38. The Night Went In A Different Direction
When I was 17, I worked the midnight shift at a convenience store in rural West Texas. Except for weekends, no one ever came in after 1 AM. Farmers and early risers started coming in at about 5:30 in the morning for coffee and breakfast items. My job overnight was basically to clean the store, cook food for the next day, and run the cash register if anyone came in.
One night at about 2 AM, a couple of guys came in and started walking up and down the aisles. I immediately got a terrible feeling. I put down my mop and went behind the counter by the cash register. I was nervous and asked them if I could help them find anything. One of them replied that they wanted directions to Amarillo, the closest city in the area. I gave them directions, and they left.
About half an hour later, I opened the back door to take out the trash. The same two guys were parked in the alley behind the store. When I came out, they drove off. I was terrified for the rest of the night. I've always believed that they were just waiting to come back in and hold up the place, and when the back door opened, it startled them enough to get out of there. I was only 17 and that night scared me.
39. TV Time
Somehow this random guy walked into the plant, sat down in the break room, and started watching TV. This happened after there had been a few shootings at work. No one really knew how he got in because we had cameras everywhere. It was almost as if he appeared out of thin air. The supervisor told him to leave and threatened to call the authorities. Reluctantly, he just left.
40. Trembling In Fear
I was an 18-year-old girl alone for a moment while my manager went out to get something. There was an abusive husband with his terrified wife in the store. He was enraged, yelling at her in sporadic jumps. She would recoil and flinch and only speak when spoken to. He stomped to the counter where I was and treated me exactly the same way.
He was talking down to me like I was the dumbest person he’d ever met in his life, raising his voice, slamming his fist down on the desk, interrupting me, and not allowing me to answer beyond yes or no. The wife was behind him, her face was pale and frozen, and her eyes were gone. Her mind was not in this world right now, and I was just his next target.
He was 6'3" tall and huge. His wife and I were both pretty small and just becoming smaller and smaller every time he raged out. When I started looking around to see if there were any other customers, managers, or other people around, he said, "Stop looking around and look at me when I'm talking to you". I was shaking and thought he might hurt me.
Luckily, he slammed his fist down one more time, sighed, and stomped out of the building. The wife followed him behind, and out in the parking lot, he started screaming and berating her and raising his hand just short of hitting her. Then they drove away. I was so scared for myself, but also for her and what might happen afterward in private.
41. Bad News—Bear!
I used to clean up a factory at night. We were a small team mainly focused on restrooms, break rooms, and offices and included changing the trash bags. The buildings we cleaned were pretty much right by the woods. One of my coworkers was taking out the trash and saw that a young bear had climbed inside a trash compactor.
He ran back in, sheet-white, and grabbed a broomstick to bang on the door. At first, I didn't believe him, but I went along with it in case he was serious. Then, he showed me the footprints—he wasn't messing with me.
Flickr, Yellowstone National Park
42. I Tried To Save Her!
I was working as a concierge in a condominium. It left m scarred for life. A fire broke out in one of the residential units. The woman who lived there was old and unable to walk. I went inside to save her, but the fire had already spread all over the unit, and I wasn’t able to get to her. I can’t explain how much pain she was going through at that moment, and I saw her die right in front of my eyes. I cried the whole night.
43. Safety Dance
I used to work at a 24-hour gas station that was in a really bad area. We’d occasionally get held up—as one does—and the general procedure was simple. Empty the register, and give them whatever they want. Your colleague who is in the back either calls the authorities or uses the secondary silent alarm if the person in front doesn't do so.
One day, my colleague was out back for a smoke, so they weren’t in the back office. A guy walked in, agitated at something, and told me to give him a stack of Marlborough Reds and the money in the register. I was doing bad mentally at the time, and my uncle had just passed, and I was a bit tipsy. So I said, "No. Leave".
He pulled out a Glock 19 and pointed it at me, telling me what to do again. Instead of doing what I was supposed to, I said, "Do you know how to turn the safety off"? The guy got angry and annoyed, checked his piece for a second, turned around, and ran away. Only about 30 minutes later did the weight of the situation actually hit me. And for the record, a Glock 19 doesn’t have a safety.
44. Caught In A Reflection
I work the night shift in a hospital. I was walking by a long hallway that was lined with windows, and I was looking out. You could see the reflection of what was behind you through the windows. I caught a glimpse of an old lady in a gown holding an IV pole, and she looked a bit surprised that I saw her as if she wasn't supposed to be there.
My first thought was it was a patient that was walking out of her room at night during shift change. I turned to where she was supposed to be to ask if she was okay, if she needed any help, a walker, or anything. There was no one there. I just said, “Nope”, and kept walking.
45. Haunted Hijinks
I stepped out of my car to deliver pizza and immediately heard guttural screaming. The voice was yelling "Help me! For the love of God, please, someone help me"! Panicked, I called emergency services, and an officer rolled up. Well, the joke was on me. He immediately knew it was the haunted house about a street over. It was over two weeks away from Halloween, and they were already open. I thought someone was getting eaten by a bear.
46. Up The River
I worked in IT at a hospital, and the computer room was next to the morgue. One late night, I walked out of the computer room to get a drink. I turned to my left, and there was a gurney with a body bag on it with water dripping out of it and two sheriff deputies standing by it. I found out they found a body in the river, and they were waiting for someone to open the morgue.
47. Tickled To Pieces
I worked the night shift as a nurse in a general hospital. There were the normal scary things, like the haunted room where the bell rang itself every night when you never saw anyone inside or leaving the room. The hospital was built with long hallways with doors on the left and right. The rooms were quite small in the old part, and the lights gave you more shadows than light.
The scariest thing took place over a few days. It started with female patients ringing for the nurse and telling them there was a ghost tickling their feet in their sleep. They all told the same story about a slender figure in a white gown standing at the end of their bed with a grin on its face—which looked more like a skull—just tickling their feet.
There was no sign of anybody coming or going, but the heavy doors from the stairway to the hallway were open at all times. One male patient in the opposite hallway across the staircase told us about somebody staying next to his bed every night just watching him sleep. It was the other patient from his room just standing there.
This man had horrible dementia, and his day-night rhythm had completely changed. He was also the one sneaking into the other rooms and tickling the women’s feet. We don't know how we never caught him. We told the doctors, and they tried to sedate him, but whenever he was caught, and we tried to stop him, he began lashing out at us.
Because of his dementia, [his sedation] had the opposite effect, and he became more crazed and agitated. We closed all doors to protect the other patients, and he tried to get in. He even tried to convince me he was someone else and to open the door for him. He changed his voice and told different stories five to six times a night. It got really scary. He was finally moved to another facility.
Unsplash, National Cancer Institute
48. No Matter How You Slice It, It Was Creepy!
I used to work the graveyard shift at the local grocery store where I lived. I did janitorial work with two others. The shift involved cleaning the floors with a floor scrubber, using a floor burnisher that was propane powered, and cleaning the store’s meat department, which involved taking apart and cleaning a band-saw, rotisserie machine, meat cuber, meat grinder, and bleaching and sanitizing the meat prep tables.
On Tuesday nights, we would all band together, focus on one aisle, and strip the wax off the linoleum floor. Once it was completely stripped and cleaned, we would apply new coats of wax. On other days, it would be just another guy and me. One of us would focus entirely on the sales floor, and one would focus on the meat department.
Sometimes we would finish a little early—about 3 to 4 AM—and we either would find some small things to address, or we would just take it easy for the rest of the night. One night, we started noticing some strange things going on. We would hear footsteps going up and down in the store's attic. I could hear really heavy stamping going on, so I called my other co-worker.
The look on his face went from puzzled and annoyed to a pure “what the heck” look, and he asked if I was messing with him. I had no reason to do that because it tripped me out as well. We looked around but found nothing, yet we still heard heavy stomping footsteps. We let management know, and they investigated but found no one. We ruled out the possibility of a break-in because if anyone had, they would have tripped the alarm.
One Tuesday night, one of my coworkers was working in the meat department and felt like he was being watched. I was running the floor scrubber, and as I was running it, I noticed a boot print that was a bluish tint from the floor stripper we used. None of us had gone near it, and the boot print didn't match any of the shoe sizes we wore, nor did it match the non-slip patterns on the bottom of a work shoe.
It had just appeared out of nowhere. I took a picture and showed it to management, and they were puzzled but didn't think anything of it. But it didn’t end there. On another night, while I was cleaning the meat department, my co-worker came ringing the bell and asked me if I was messing with his work by the register. I had explained that I was in the meat department the whole time, getting all the cleaners and sanitizers ready for when I break down everything and clean.
He had told me that while he was mopping the registers, he heard footsteps behind him and had even heard someone say he missed a spot. He even found a few shoe prints on a part he had just mopped. I was listening to a podcast and wasn't anywhere near the registers. He definitely got creeped out. Then, one night, I had to work solo. That was the scariest night of all.
It was about 10 PM when I started my shift. I was cleaning off the band saw and kept thinking I was seeing a man in blue and neon green mining gear. I was trying to ignore it and brushed it off as being tired and just my mind being freaked out by other things. However, the more I ignored it, the more I thought I saw people walking around at high speed, along with the blue miner guy pacing back and forth by the meat coffin.
As I put the bandsaw back, I moved the butcher’s table while looking around outside to make sure no one was messing with me. I moved the table to the sinks and started to pour a little bit of bleach on the table. Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw the same miner in blue, but this time, he looked like he had fire orange eyes with a nasty, dirty-looking face.
He was pacing frantically, and I saw him go towards the employee-only entrance and to the rear back entrance of the meat room. When I looked that way, there was no one there, but all five of the plastic door pieces were shaking violently. Being freaked out, I grabbed one of the butcher’s meat hatchets and looked all around the area calling for anyone who might be messing with me.
No one ever came out. I decided to take a small break to soothe my nerves. As I was taking my break, I heard what sounded like footsteps coming up to the break room. I got up with caution and went towards the door, then slowly looked down the stairs. Again, there was no one there or around. Freaking out, I closed the door to finish my snack and put a chair in front of it.
As I was finishing my snack, I heard another series of footsteps charge up the stairs. I hid where no one would see me and held my phone out to use the camera. I watched and heard about four additional steps and then nothing. I left it alone until I heard someone call out on the ground floor. I looked out of the break room window into the shipping and receiving area and saw nothing.
I heard a knock on the door by the chair I had placed to prevent the door from opening. I flew out of the break room and said, "Look, I don't know who is doing this, but could you please give it a rest? I still have a job to do, and you’re stressing me out, and I don't know how to explain to management that I didn't get anything done due to things just constantly happening”.
It stopped for a bit, but toward the 3 AM mark, it picked up again. When I went to the meat coffins to set some groceries aside for check out, I saw the deli slicer move on its own, and the handle swipe up and down, then slowly return to its original position. It was a manual slicer.
49. No Happy Meal For Him
A guy burst into my brother's McDonald's when my brother was cleaning the lobby. My brother stuck his hands up, thinking he was being held up. The guy just looked at him and said, "I ain't here for you, don't worry", then walked up to where his wife was sitting with another man and popped him in the head right there. The wife had been cheating on him.
The dude just sat there and waited for officers to show up before going outside with his hands up. It was the coldest act my brother had ever seen.
50. Back From Beyond
As a law enforcement officer, I got called to an intruder alarm at a funeral home. I found a confused elderly guy who said he got locked in there when it closed. We locked the door, called the business owner, and drove the old guy to his home. He walked around the back. The people at the house had lived there for years and never saw the old guy. We went back to the funeral home, and they said a cadaver was missing.
Sources: Reddit,
