5 Freakiest Things Campers See in the Woods
I’m not ashamed to admit I’d pebble my pants if any of these things happened to me…
A few months ago, we ran an article about the freakiest stuff that hunters see in the wilderness, and I’m not ashamed to admit that many of the things I read while researching that one returned to remind me of themselves later, in the predawn darkness of my turkey blind. A month after that, we ran an article about the freakiest stuff you, our GGD readers, have seen in the woods…and some of the tales you told have really given me the willies while out in the williwags. It’s summertime, and although hunting activity’s a little low right now, stories of spooky occurrences dogging hikers and campers are starting to pour in. Here are five creepy tales of the outdoors, scoured from Reddit, that I’m pretty sure are going to come back to haunt my sleep in trailside camps for months to come. What’s different about this list is that four of the stories have something in common…and it’s the fifth one that will bring the point home.
1. Terror in the Scottish Highlands
TRANSCRIPTION:
when i was very little, like five or six, my dad used to take me on all sorts of adventures through nature, especially when we owned a little cottage up in the scottish highlands. now, my dad is sort of a combo irish bloke + yorkshire laddy type of fellow and very spry (despite his being about 55 at the time), and on this particular occasion had decided we were going to go hiking way up into the cliffs (i was quite happy with this development as it meant a piggy back ride for at least 90% of the difficult bits.)
this was a proper, proper trek, he wanted to get to one of the highest bluffs so we could have an amazing 360 degree view of the gorgeous meadows and some sparkling sea, but after we reached the top plains, where it’s all short, windwhipped grass and you can see for miles, he suddenly turned very still and very quiet.
when you’re small, your parents are God so seeing your Dad look frightened is scarier than anything your own mind can come up with, so i was pulling on his arm and going, “what, what?” – my mum is epileptic and i saw her fits when i was a kid so i thought it was happening to him too, or something similar, and i wouldn’t know what to do because we’re up on this huge cliff and no one is around, when just as fast as he started it, he snapped out of it, fireman lifted me right up and just started striding away without a word.
over his shoulder, i could see a big, pale yellow object stuck into the ground like an obelisk. i know now that it was a refrigerator.
when i was older and i asked my Dad about it, he stiffened up and told me that when he was a boy in the 50s, he and his little friends had found an old style fridge in the woods, and being little boys, they opened it. well, of course, they had found a body – another child, who by whichever means had found themselves in the fridge and unable to get out. my Dad has never mentioned a gender which leads me to believe he either witnessed a very decomposed or skeletonised individual, but i can’t ask him. remember that episode of the Simpsons where they unlock Homer’s PTSD and it turns out he found a dead body when he was a teenager? my dad grew increasingly uncomfortable the first time we saw that episode and had excused himself to the kitchen before the ending. my Dad has seen some gnarly shit but for wherever reason he will not discuss anything further about this dead child in the fridge, only that it happened.
so when he explained, i assumed it was the trauma and i said something like, “oh Dad, that’s awful – so when you saw the fridge up there, it brang up the old memories?” and he honestly looked at me with his big blue eyes like i was an idiot, i’ll never forget it.
“no, Amy,” he said in a very low tone, “it was because it was the same fridge.”
2. The Creeper Out of Space
TRANSCRIPTION:
One night my friend and I decided to hike to the top of this small mountain at night for a meteor shower. There were 4 of us, all around 16 at the time, and thought it would be cool. We drove over and started hiking. We took a break about half way when we noticed there was a guy following us… in a business suit? We were weirded out so we decided to start back up and walk a bit faster. But by the next time we stopped he was like 10 feet away so we bit the bullet to see if he’d just walk by. He didn’t. He stopped and asked if we were there for the meteor shower and if he could walk with us. Weird a 30 something year old man in a suit wanting to hike with four 16 year olds but whatever.
As we were walking my friend and I notice he was walking really close to our friend (the only girl in the group) like he could smell her shampoo close. We got to the top, sat down, and he sat down almost right up on our friend. With her reasonably freaked out I made and excuse on why we have to leave early and we promptly booked it the fuck out of there. Nearly running the entire way down. When we got back to the car we thought “cool we ditched the weirdo”.
But no. When we were all in the car our my friend pointed out that this guy is FULL ON SPRINTING down the trail and towards our car with a large stick. Being in a car we just drove out of there very shook up. We chalked it up to some dude on some hell of a drug but 2 days later we all got a text linking us to a news report about a guy that had strangled his wife and then proceeded to kill another girl later that night on a hiking trail. It. Was. The. Guy. The same dude at the same hiking trail. We never told our parents about the incident and never went back there. EVER.
EDIT: A lot of people are asking for an article. I won’t be posting it due to the fact that it tells you my exact small town and state but if you really want it you can find the article with a bit of digging.
3. Death in the Dunes Down Under
TRANSCRIPTION: Not super scary but was camping with a few buddies once pretty far out in a sort of sand dune type terrain in Australia. The plan was to just hike to a good spot we knew well and get drunk. We got to the spot and pitched tents and were chilling, our spot is on top of a really high dune because the view from the top was just mesmerizing with the ocean and wilderness.
Anyway’s we just got the campfire started and out of no where this Jeep just comes flying over the lip of this hill right next to us and almost crushes a few friends of mine and one of the tents, like I said this sand dune is really high up so I have no idea how they managed to get up it at the speed they did. They slammed the brakes and no one can get a look at them as the windows were tinted and sped off over the dunes. That was more chaotic and random but the creepy part was about an hour later I went off to do a piss in a bush near by and was looking down the hill and just saw a figure staring up at me, friend of mine came behind me to piss in a bush next to me and scared the shit out of me.
When I pointed the figure out to my mate it just took off over a lip of a hill. Definitely a night I won’t forget and I don’t think I’ve returned to that spot since.
EDIT: I should have added all this was at night time. EDIT 2: Cannot believe I missed out this part, but this occurred around 3 years ago and about two months ago human remains were found right next to our spot, scary shit goes on in those dunes I tell you.
[–]Palmyboys 503 points 1 month ago
Top of Form
In regards to your edit, when specially was this? Because the human remains found a couple months ago at Burns Beach belonged to a man who went missing exactly… 3 years ago. When you were there. And now I’m scared shitless you encountered the killer.
4. Yellowstone and Yellow Jockey Shorts
TRANSCRIPTION:
Yellowstone National Park in October of 2015.
I’m kind of an avid amateur photographer, and one night around 4AM I was out alone in the Firehole Basin region of the park. The goal was to take a long exposure photo of a geyser erupting, with the Milky Way stretching through the sky overhead. The photo turned out to be pretty much a bust – when geysers erupt they blow massive amounts of steam into the air, and steam kind of blurs that whole beautiful night sky situation.
But anyway – I parked my car and hiked a ways to get close to the geyser I wanted to photograph, then I set up my tripod, adjusted all the settings, and waited for the (eventual) eruption.
The night was crystal clear, perfectly quiet, and very cold. As my ears grew accustomed to the lack of sound, I gradually realized I could hear the gentle burbling of the spring that gives birth to the Firehole River, some distance behind me. I could hear wind in the trees and leaves rustling across the ground. In front of me, I could hear rumbling and hissing from deep within the Earth, as the White Dome geyser worked itself up for another (inevitable) eruption. An owl hooted somewhere above me, and I could even hear the distant howls of wolves across the bowl of the Midway Valley below.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I could see the Milky Way stretched like a river of light from horizon to horizon overhead. A million, billion stars shined above, brilliant and cold. Orion hung over my right shoulder, and Venus burned just above the horizon – so bright it almost hurt to look directly at it.
And then behind me, loud and sudden, the pounding footsteps of a giant. Clearly coming right at me. Bear? Bigfoot? Some hideous monster, born in the hell of a geyser’s boiling mouth, spewed upon the land to wreak vengeance? I didn’t know. But I knew it was coming, and I knew it was close.
The buffalo actually brushed against me as he went past. I was frozen in place. Resigned to my fate. A huge bull, a mountain of fur and horns, shambling up out of the darkness, steam billowing from his nostrils in the cold, dry air. It felt like a close encounter with a freight train. He strode past like I didn’t exist, seemed to tiptoe gently around my tripod, then stopped about 10 feet in front of me and took a long, slow, very satisfying, steaming piss on the ground. Then he grunted and went on his way.
And I stood there wondering how I was going to take a photo, if the geyser blew before my hands stopped shaking.
Trace’s commentary: This Reddit user posted the photo they got; you can view it here.
5. And This, Kiddies, is Why I Carry a Firearm
TRANSCRIPTION:
Not hiking so much as car camping, but we were way the fuck out there in the middle of nowhere on BLM land in Colorado. We drove for an hour and a half down a forest service road and didn’t see another soul. You could see headlights and hear cars from miles away from our campsite – it’s not like somebody could have snuck up unnoticed.
We had 3 cars with us and 8 people. Just got done eating dinner, cleaned up, it was getting dark so we went back to the cars real quick before hitting our tents for the night. Somebody had slashed the front right tire on each of the 3 cars with what appeared to be a box cutter. Everyone thought it was a prank but it become very apparent, very quickly that it wasn’t. All of us were beyond spooked, like panicking, scary to watch spooked. We all had spares, and one dude had a gun, so we threw on our donuts while that guy literally guarded us and got the hell out of there.
I still have nightmares about it sometimes. Just knowing there was some person, probably watching us, maybe wanting to harm us, makes me feel physically ill to this day.
Edit: Well this blew up. To answer some questions:
This was south of Gypsum. And it was 100% not private land, this was a marked forest service road in an area with dispersed camping I had visited several times before.
There were 3 guys and 5 girls, the guys were all together cooking the whole time leading up to us discovering the tires being slashed. These people are my best friends and this would be wildly uncharacteristic of any of them.
For those wondering how we didn’t hear it, our cars were parked ~30 yards away from our fire/tents. And a car coming down a road is easy to pick out from the sounds of nature. A gentle hissing gets lost in the wind. We heard it as soon as we started walking up.
The tires were slashed on the exact same spot on the sidewall. It would be almost impossible for something on the road to puncture the tires like that.
Also, there was no cell service. We called the cops and ranger as soon as we got back to the highway, told them exactly what FS road we were on and gave them coordinates, but there isn’t a lot for them to do. Cop told us it was good we were packing and to be careful out there.
Do you carry in the woods? If not, why not? Tell us in the comments!
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It really makes no difference where you go, there are only two kinds of people in this country: People who carry guns and potential victims. I choose to carry a gun.
I live in Cleveland, so unless you live in Detroit, this stuff is pretty tame. I carry when doing yardwork! I may forget my wallet, phone, smokes, or anything else but I never forget my Glock and an extra mag!!!
I carry in the Superman,let alone the woods.
IN THIS COUNTRY THE WAY IT’S BEING RUN NOW IN THESE SANCTUARY CITIES AND OPEN BORDER’S I CARRY EVERYWHERE I CAN!!
10-4 Hoss….I don’t attend Sunday School w/o a 1911 45acp, claymore, at least 2 frags and a M-60 mounted to my truck……
Everyday way of life. My kind of battle buddy.
Keep your powder dry👍
I carry ALL the time everywhere…..
Period
Loved the story, I myself have a few, 27 years in the Army, 5 years a Corrections Officer and lived and hunted in Alaska for 15 years as well as meany parts of the lower fourth eight.
These days the world is more dangerous than ever before. I have not carried since I left the military. With drugs, terrorists and criminals running rampant, accompanied by sociopathic behavior, safe doesn’t exist. My problem is once I go back into grunt mode it is total immersion, and tripwires, claymores and other defensive measures are frowned on. What’s a grunt to do?
Amen!
Historically, things are safer now then they have been in the recorded history of mankind. For the last 60 years, we in the western world have lived in a bubble of safety unprecedented in history. Which doesn’t mean squat if you are the unlucky person that has to deal with a monster.
Carry and practice. Your life and that of those you care for may depend on it.
As a scientist, and a rational person, I find that Nature…….and Humans…….are mainly Good. I try to have this dominant belief dictate a love of Nature, and respect for my Fellow Man/Woman.
However………”mainly” does leave a bit of wriggle room on the left fringe of a bell curve. As the authors so eloquently say…….”there’s some weird shit out there”.
A true scientist does not try to demean such accounts, but to
A) Respect them as stressful anomolys..
B) Not become paranoid………or blasé.
Since we first started huddling in caves while wild things prowled abroad, it has been nice to cuddle up to a good flint point……..or a nice .45ACP.
Just In Case…………….
My father and his hunting buddy decided to take me and my younger brother hunting with them in the mountains southeast of Albuquerque N.M. north of a little town called Mountainaire. Upon reaching the hunting area our father decided to do some scouting. Jim his buddy said you go south I’ll go north. My father asked if we (my brother and I) would be ok staying by the van, to which we said yes. There were some stone ruins nearby and I told my father that we would be ok as I had my .22 rifle with me. My father told me that if we needed help to fire 3 rounds into a dead tree nearby wait a few seconds then fire another 3. So off they went, my father went south and Jim went north.
My brother and I ran to the ruins I then lay the rifle down and we began to explore. About a half hour later my brother called me in a panic and was running towards me with his arms flailing around. I was never more than 10 feet from my rifle and stepped over to it all the time keeping an eye on him. I picked up my rifle racked a load into it and as soon as my brother got to me I held my rifle aimed in the direction he was running from, all he would do is tell me we need to get in the van and lock the doors and cover up and hide. I tried pumping him for more info but all he said was “let’s go to the van”.
I decided that if he was that scared he must have seen something that my .22 would not stop and I unloaded my rifle and put the ammo in my pocket and grabbed his hand and we took off running th 50 or so yards to the van. As soon as we got to the van we climbed in and made sure that the doors were locked and I reloaded my rifle and lay it on the seat next to us and we covered up with the blankets and lay as still as we could. We must have laid there for an hour before my brother finally told me what scared him so badly.
My brother said he was playing in the dry creek bed and heard some grumbling in the bushes about 25feet away. And as he was getting up he noticed a huge footprint in the sand near him and that’s when he came running for me.
We finally got up the nerve to start looking around and did not see anything or anyone. Eventually we began to get hot in the van and I suggested that we get out and fire the gun like dad told us.
Shaking like a leaf in a hurricane I fired three rounds into the dead tree counted the longest 10 seconds and fired another 3 rounds into the tree. I immediately dumped that magazine and put in a fresh one handed the almost empty one and a handful of rounds to my brother to fill again.
We stood next to the van for about 1/2 hour never venturing more than 2-3 feet from the open door.
My brother finally had to relieve his bladder and went to the front of the van and peed for what seemed like days.
I caught sight of poor ol’ dad running like crazy towards the van with Jim in tow. They were about a quarter mile away. I pointed them out to my brother and he said “good I wanna go home now”. As soon as dad got to us he asked “what happened? ” my brother told him about the grumbling bushes and the giant foot prints in the sandy creek bed.
Jim and dad took us to the place where my brother saw that and they looked at the footprints and Jim loaded his 30.30, dad rammed a load into his 30.06 and asked me to load my rifle. My brother was told to stand behind me.
Jim took off his boot and stepped into the sand next to one of the footprints and compared his print to the huge print. Jim looked at dad and said this wasn’t a bear or a coyote. I got a little closer and looked at the size difference. Jim told us his foot size was a 13 and this print dwarfed his print and appeared to be surrounded by fur. The structure was quite similar to Jim’s footprint and my brother kept saying let’s go home.
The four of us went back to the van got in and drove home bringing to an end the last hunting trip our dad ever went on.
We did not say much on the way home. And to this day my brother wont talk about our trip and sometimes my dad will ask me what I thought. All I can say is “bigfoot”.
Years later my friends and I would go ride our dirt bikes near that area and they would always ask me why I always packed my 1911 with me. I never told them except to say bears live in the woods.
Never saw anything again.
New Mexico is a strange place.
This didn’t happen when I was camping, and at the time it was just country and not even what I would call “woods”. However, at the time the golf course wasn’t yet developed and there weren’t any homes within view or people within yelling-hearing distance. My 2 step-brothers and I were on a bike ride and going up through a little canyon in western Pennsylvania called Hell’s Hollow. Legend is that back in the day people used to get robbed their by Indians and/or bandits because by the top-end of the canyon/hollow their horses were too tired to run, and there wasn’t really anywhere to run anyway. Allegedly, some of these robberies turned into murders. I never bothered to see if these stories were true because I didn’t have the means to research them until I was in college and no longer lived there. It didn’t matter to me if the old stories were true because I know what I saw, or didn’t see, and while it was certainly unearthly, it didn’t feel human, so I didn’t tie it to the stores. Anyway, this road intersected into another road and basically made a “V” for our desired route. Not wanting to ride ~200 yards uphill, then basically double back the other leg of the V another ~200 yards uphill, I decided to cut through the clearing in the trees and drag my bike up the bank/hill on the other side of the shallow creek while my brothers wanted to stay on pavement. As I started pushing my bike through the tall grass towards the creek, I heard a loud bang on this old natural gas or oil storage tank. I assumed a dead stick had just fell out of a tree and hit it, but fell to ground on the backside of the tank before I could see it hit the ground. So I kept walking. I then heard a deep guttural growl like nothing I had ever heard. I froze in my tracks and instantly began scanning for the source of this audible warning. I didn’t see anything but I heard it getting closer. Mind you this is broad daylight on a sunny day in something only city people would call woods. Then I saw it, or I should say I didn’t see it, but I saw two distinct footprints well over 5” wide and 14” long each approaching me, pushing down the grass from the weight of this invisible bipedal creature. I didn’t wait to see what else happened, it was time for fight or flight and I clearly had no way of fighting whatever this was. It was irrelevant that I was a child at the time, my response would have been the same even 2 decades later when I was in my prime at 6’, 200#s, and single digit bodyfat. And it would still be now at 40 less pounds and twice as much fat, even with all the guns I have. Whatever wanted me out of there was not human, and I don’t believe it was even mortal. But I was powerful, and not just physically. I don’t have any other ghost stories, no other experiences, and I’m not even prone to believing other’s stories, applying as much skepticism to the story as is proportional to the character of the storyteller. So I don’t expect anyone to believe this. I didn’t even tell anyone about it until about 15 years ago. Fortunately, that person applied the character rule to story and believed me/it. Because of that positive reception I’ve told it almost 10 times since. Every time I tell it the hair all over my body is standing on end, which may be the only reason I get positive reception and belief in response to taking the risk of opening myself up and potentially sounding like an attention-thirsty liar. The main reason I’m even writing it down now is so I can copy paste this text into my phone should I ever decide to share it again.
I carry in just about any place it’s possible to carry. Discounting horror stories which may or may not be true, there are plenty of wild animals and just plain crazy people that live in the deep wilderness that would have no problem doing you harm. Going into the wilderness unarmed is just a Darwin award waiting to happen.