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I’ve probably seen way too many horror movies in my life, but one thing I’ve learned is that there are all kinds of spooky and dangerous things out there in the middle of nowhere…so beware…
What weird, unexplained things have you seen in rural areas?
AskReddit users shared their stories.
1. What?!?!
“I was camping alone in the middle of the plains in North Dakota. A storm blew in and I was stuck in my tent under some trees and got a super strange feeling.
I had two phones on me at the time, one had internet and was for navigating and the other was just for cell reception (2013).
All of a sudden, one of the phones starting ringing and I looked at the caller ID, the call was coming from my other phone which was closed and in my hand.”
2. Ranger station.
“15 years ago I had a seasonal job with the US Forest Service in western Colorado for the summer.
I was living in an old ranger station by myself. One night I had a dream that someone was walking around the cabin while I was in bed. When I woke up that morning the front door was wide open. For the rest of the summer I slept with a large knife close by.”
3. Freaked out.
“My dad used to rent this house way out in the middle of nowhere. A good 45 minutes from any town, the closest neighbor was another 15 minutes away.
On this property were several enclosures for raising pheasants. These belonged to the property owner so my dad had no responsibility towards them, other than to notify the owner if he saw anything wrong. (He was high school buddies with the owner so they were on good terms)
Well one morning he notices something very wrong. In the pheasant enclosure furthest from the house, with a good 50 or so birds. Every single one of them had been slaughtered overnight. What was even weirder was that it didn’t seem to be an act of predation. None of the birds seemed to have been consumed. Luckily the owner had cameras and they got to see what really happened.
So sometime in the middle of the night, a man neither of them recognized had wandered onto the property. He made no attempt to approach the house, but instead crawled under the enclosures fence and proceeded to catch and stab each pheasant with a knife while wearing a headlamp. They caught the entire event on camera, from him entering the property till he left early in the morning.
The police were called but nothing ever came of it. My dad was so freaked out from the whole event that he made us stay with our mom for several weeks while he slept in bed with a gun. The property owner tightened up security with new fences and alarms. He even bought some guard dogs. They were very well trained and super friendly to anyone who’d approach them during the day. Nothing ever happened again on that farm, and the bird killing psycho was never found.”
4. In the woods.
“I live alone in the woods fifteen minutes from my town. My neighbors are near but not right next door.
One summer morning I woke around 4:30am to a strange ‘pounding’ sound. It was still kind of dusky dawn lighting and I was in a daze from just waking up. Then I started to hear a man’s voice yelling “somebody help me”. I began to look out my windows to see if I could see anyone but couldn’t from upstairs.
My home has no window coverings on any windows. I went downstairs and caught a glimpse of him, naked with a thin T-shirt on, running around my house trying to jiggle windows and doors. He was very erratic, kept screaming for someone to help him, and kept running from door to window all around trying to find a way in. In any normal situation, I would gladly help someone in need. But this situation felt too unpredictable and dangerous for me to allow this person into my home.
I was able to contact my neighbors who got my msg and quickly made their way over to help me, this is faster than any police that can get here. The guy ran away straight into the trees before they arrived. He was picked up by RCMP shortly after. No idea what happened there.”
5. Something is watching.
“I walked about a mile from home to go mushroom hunting in a usual area. Walked through a field of goldenrod as high as my shoulders and was about to enter the woods when I felt something strange.
I felt like I needed to go or I wouldn’t get out of there alive. I didn’t hear or see anything, but I had got goosebumps and I felt anxious when everything was fine before I reached that spot. I stood there debating and decided to go hunt somewhere else. I’ve gone back many times and haven’t experienced that again.
I live in an area that have bears, wolves, coyotes and bobcats, I’ve never had any problems with them on walks or hikes in the woods, but maybe that day would’ve been different or maybe there was a bad person in there. I’ve learned to trust this feeling I get, it’s saved me many times and when I ignored it I got hurt. Whatever was in there, I did the right thing in not going in.”
6. Hmmm…
“I grew up on a small property in regional Australia.
We lived about 3-4km out of town, so not super far, but also far enough that we never really get disturbed. On top of that, we were on a d**d end street, down the end of another street off of the mainroad, so not once have I ever seen a pedestrian near my house.
Anyway, one night when I was about 12, I was watching tv when 2 of my brothers came downstairs and said “did you hear that?”
I was pretty glued to the tv so didn’t hear a thing, but apparently they heard footsteps outside and a couple of hushed voices.Seeing as how my brothers were both around 20 and both big rugby playing dudes, their plan was for me to wait inside, while they ran outside and tackled anybody they could find before calling the cops. So they both sprinted out the front door at the same time, splitting in different directions to wrap around the house and meet again on the other side, presumably each with a criminal wrapped in a headlock under their arm.
If you’ve ever seen that movie “Signs” where Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix run around the house, basically just picture that.
Anyway. They never found them. Swear to this day that they heard voices, but nobody was ever seen. Our property has a lot of thick bushland right up to the house, so all we can think is that when my brothers came out, these guys just dissolved back into the bush and watched, then probably just took off once the coast was clear again.
The whole thing scared the hell out of me.”
7. Screeching.
“Camping as a kid behind buddy’s house. Heard most god awful terrifying screech. Like 2 pieces of metal being rubbed together. Hands absolutely trembled unzipping tent and we hauled a** to the house.
Honestly I was still scared in there too, thought something was going to come through window and get me. Probably a cougar/mountain lion I suppose but they aren’t common here at all.”
8. Footsteps.
“I grew up on a ranch, in a small, old California ranch house. Lots of windows to stay cool on the summer, almost all the rooms open to the central living room.
I was probably 14, my bother was 11, and my mom was out that night running an errand. Brother and I are together in the living room. He’s sitting by the stove and I’m lying on the sofa, we’re both doing homework. Inside the lights are on, but through the windows it’s pitch black. As I’m reading I here footsteps on the mud porch leading up the front door. It’s an old house, and I hear the heavy footsteps clearly. But I hadn’t seen my mom’s car drive in.
I hadn’t seen or heard any car. It’s the country, I would have heard a car approaching and seen their headlights through the dark windows. But there was nothing, just the footsteps on the porch. They stop at the front door, but no one knocks. I am frozen. If I had gotten up and looked around the corner through the kitchen, I would have seen the owner of the food steps standing at the door, which had a window. But then they would have seen me.
If I talk to my brother, they’ll hear me. And in the dark, anyone could be looking through the windows at us, but we couldn’t see out. I go through all my options. The person is standing at the only door in or out of the house, which is always unlocked. If I go to the kitchen to grab a knife, they will see me and know I see them. We can’t hide, the house is too small and they’ll see where we go. My heart is racing.
My best option is to pretend I don’t know for as long as I can, and be ready for whatever comes next. But after a few minutes, I don’t hear any more footsteps. I calm down. I might have just imagined it. Twenty minutes later I hear my mom’s car and see the headlights go across the windows. I run outside, because I’m still a child and I want my mother to know how scared I am.
But before I can tell her she asks me, “Who left the water on?” and I’m terrified again. We had this weird water spigot in the front yard, with a pole that shot up to about waist height and a spigot turned up instead of down. My brother and I would treat it like a drinking fountain or turn it on full blast and play under it like a fountain.
When she got home the water was on, full blast, shooting several feet up into the air. Someone had been there that night, on our porch. They saw my brother and I, alone, no car in the drive. They didn’t come in, but they wanted us to know they could have.”
9. The dog knew.
“I was hiking down a trail with my dog in remote Northern Wisconsin, when I just got a weird feeling. At the exact same time, the heckles on my dog went straight up and he began acting really anxious.
About the same time, I came into a clearing in the woods, and got hit with what I can only describe as a sound wave. It was like someone was blasting a subwoofer right next to me but there was nothing around. The nearest road was maybe a mile away.
Something told me to get the f**k out of there. So I quickly turned around and hiked as quickly as possible the rest of the way back. I didn’t hear that bass sound after I left the clearing, but I still felt like something was following me.”
10. The siren.
“My wife and I were staying at a cabin in a rural town in the mountains. Around 8pm, an air raid siren (fire maybe), rang out for quite a while. We joked that it might be a zombie apocalypse, and after a while we actually got a little nervous that we didn’t know what it was for.
So I put on my coat and pots and walked down the road to a small grocery store nearby. Went in, asked if they knew what the siren was for. They said “what siren?” And when I went back outside the siren was gone.”
11. Florida.
When I was a kid I lived with my Grandma in a very rural area of Florida that was known for being a dumping ground for m**der victims.
I never actually found a body whilst playing in the woods, but I did find a woman leaning over a creek in a dirty white dress at around 6pm right as the sun was setting. I heard her faint sobbing in the distance and went to investigate. When I climbed over the embankment at the edge of the creek and finally saw her, she almost immediately started screaming at the top of her lungs, just staring into the water.
Obviously I wasn’t a scaredy cat, I was a brave 12 year old. So naturally, I instantly s**t my pants and ran away. Still have no idea what that woman was doing, but that area was also known for having meth labs hidden in the woods, so that probably explains some of the strange people I met playing in that area.”
12. Very odd.
“I lived in Japan and went on a trip in the mountains with a friend of mine. On a night ramble with him in an unfamiliar area, we both happened upon a torii that was immediately met with an impassable rock face.
This seemed strange to me as torii were symbolically passageways. He and I both instinctively looked up to the sky while standing before the torii and somewhere that felt close to earth a great multicolored light appeared hovering above us, letting off light almost like a gas in the full spectrum of colors, before disappearing.
He and I both felt something incredibly significant had happened, but had no idea what. Very odd feeling.”
Now it’s your turn!
Do you have any creepy stories like this?
Share some good ones with us in the comments!
