There’s a lot of interesting people out there, but some people are interesting for all the wrong reasons…From suspicious behaviors to eerie comments, there can be all kinds of things that make meeting somebody an extremely unsettling experience. When our gut feeling tells us to be fearful of certain individuals, it might not be a bad idea to listen. Our instincts can be right more often than we expect! Here are 50 spooky stories about the scariest people that folks have ever encountered.
1. A Long Commute
My friend's mother was walking home from the train station and became aware that she was being followed by a man. She took all sorts of detours and the man continued to follow her for the entire journey. After about 25 minutes, she arrived at her house but had the good sense to walk straight past it and continued on to the local detective station.
Once inside, she turned around to see the man walk past. But first, he stopped to give her an extremely creepy wave. That story still terrifies me.
2. None Of His Business
When I was maybe seven or eight years old, I went to a local Burger King with my mom. I was impatient to eat, so I went to go play around in one of those plastic playground things that are about 20 feet high. There were no other kids in it, so I just started to climb to the highest point. But things got really weird, really fast…
A businessman in a white shirt and tie looked at me climbing up, then calmly put his burger down and proceeded to climb up after me. He didn't say anything as he did it. I was old enough to think that this was weird, and had flashbacks to our school counselor talking to the class about getting kidnapped and such. I rushed to the slide and ran straight to my mom.
I gave her a giant hug. I didn't tell her about the incident until later.
3. Coming In Handy
My sister's bedroom was on the second floor of our childhood home. Late one night, she suddenly screamed and said she saw a hand on her window. We thought she was just having a nightmare and told her to go back to bed. The next morning, when we all woke up, we made a truly chilling discovery. We found a ladder leaning up against our house by her bedroom window…
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4. Getting Up Close And Personal
I drove my sister to get sushi in a not so good part of town one time. We were in the car about to get out, and I reached down to get my wallet. I looked back up to find the creepiest, most strung-out looking human being I've ever seen in my life. He had his face against her window, licking the glass. He then pulled his sleeve up to show us some scars on his forearm, face on the glass all the while.
I don't drive out to get food at that restaurant anymore...
5. Fortress Of Solitude
This story is 100% true. I experienced it myself in the summer of 1991. When I was about 10 years old, I lived on Woodway Drive in the Fox Harbor Apartments in Paducah, Kentucky. If you look up the address, you will see some woods just to the north of the apartment complex. My friends and I played in those woods every day after school and all day on the weekends.
During the few years I lived there, we cleared a small area in the woods and created a fort from various things we got out of dumpsters. It was our own place that no one else knew about, and it was awesome. One day, as we were walking to our fort, off in the distance we saw a man walking through the woods. He was walking parallel to us, but in the opposite direction.
We stopped talking and halted dead in our tracks when we saw him. We never saw anyone in the woods, especially not adults. When we stopped moving, he did too. He turned towards us and looked right at us. As I stared at him and was able to make out the details of what he looked like, I felt my heart stop in my chest. Not only was he was wearing what looked like a Halloween mask, he was also carrying an ax in his hands.
We stood there in silence and motionless for what was probably about 10 seconds, him looking at us and us looking at him. Then, he started sprinting straight at us. We did the only thing we thought to do, run straight to our fort. We were probably about 50 yards from the entrance to the fort and, in those 50 yards, he gained a lot of ground on us.
When we finally made it, he was upon us. All of my friends scurried up a tree and were screaming, but I was the last in line. By the time I could try and climb the tree, he was standing right there by us. He was screaming like a lunatic and waving the ax in the air. I was scared, had no idea what was going on, and my mind was blank on what I should do.
I grabbed a large stick and took a nice big baseball-style swing and cracked him on the face with it. He stumbled back a bit, moaned, and took the mask off. The craziest part? I recognized the face. It was the landlord and manager of the apartment complex. A man who was probably about FIFTY years old. He wanted to play a joke on us and thought this was the most appropriate thing to do. He was insane.
6. Window Shopping
When I used to walk home from the bus stop, I used to walk past a house where a man, maybe in his 40s, lived. If he was out in front when I walked past, we would say hello to each other. Perfectly normal. But sometimes, he would be inside at the window just looking out at me. He didn't wave or show any sign that he saw me.
My friend happened to be with me once when he did this, and she told me that it almost seemed as though he thought we couldn't see him. This behavior didn't happen all the time. Don't get the wrong idea, he wasn't a weird stalker or anything. Just sometimes, maybe about 10 to 12 times in total. Nothing ever came of it.
I eventually stopped bussing and started driving. He moved away from the area a few years ago, and then I moved away too even more recently. But I never forgot the creepy feeling of seeing him behind that window. I just remember that horrible feeling whenever I saw him watching, because I had no way of knowing what he was thinking.
7. Mother Goose’s Creepy Uncle
Today, I was standing outside of my dentist's office waiting for my wife. I was minding my own business and having a smoke when this old guy walked up to me from out of nowhere. With seemingly no emotion in his eyes, he looked straight at me and asked me “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
I was about to start laughing it off when I started to realize that he was being fully serious and didn’t mean this as any kind of a joke. I awkwardly said that a woodchuck could chuck as much as it felt like. He just stared at me silently for a few seconds, then turned around and walked away. I just stood there watching him go and thought the whole thing was downright creepy.
8. A Dog’s Life
When I was quite young, I was out at the park walking my dog one day when I realized it was getting quite late and I was the only one left in the park. A man dressed in a dark hooded top and a black scarf covering his face jumped the fence that leads into the alleyway behind the park and started marching towards me. But he hadn't spotted my dog.
My dog had been off sniffing around or doing whatever dogs do. When the guy approached, my dog got between us and there was a kind of stand-off for a while. My dog was really tense and growling with his hackles raised, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if my dog was going to attack the man, so I just kind of froze.
After a while, the man backed away, jumped back over the fence, and ran away down the alley. I put my dog back on his leash and went home, but he was still tense the whole way back. I was a little freaked out, but perhaps not as afraid as I should have been looking back on it now. I didn't know what that man wanted, or what he was doing there, or what would have happened if my dog wasn't there with me.
There would have been no legitimate reason that I can think of for him to have come into that park by himself and walked towards me like that. I shudder to think about it. I think if the man had made a move towards me, my dog would have attacked him. I was very lucky to have such a loyal pet at my side. He may have saved my life!
9. Late Night Visitor
One night, around three in the morning, I was fast asleep with my ex-boyfriend next to me. All of a sudden, I heard a voice inside my house asking if anyone was home. I woke up my ex and told him to go see what the heck was going on. He was a total chicken and he made me go. I got out of bed and couldn't find my glasses, but the guy was still shouting.
I came out of my bedroom in my pajamas and see a big bald dude in what looks to be a law enforcement uniform standing in my entryway. I'm squinting trying to get a good look at him. He looked at me and said, "I just wanted to tell you that your door was left unlocked and you should lock it." I mumbled something to the effect of "Uh, thanks?" and he left my apartment.
I was still as blind as a bat, but then I noticed something that scared the living daylights out of me. I saw that he walked away instead of getting into a car. No policeman would have ever been patrolling the random woodsy area that I live in on foot. The next day, I called the local station and asked if any officers had reported this incident. They said they would check with their officers and get back to me.
They called me back the next day and informed me that none of their guys had done this. So we have no idea who that guy was. I still get freaked out whenever I think about this happening and I wish I knew what that guy was really up to. I mean, what motive could someone possibly have for entering someone’s house in a costume and then just leaving?
10. The Long And Winding Road
When my high school sweetheart’s father found out that I had taken his daughter's virginity, he asked me to come along with him but didn’t tell me where we were going. He ended up taking me for a long drive to an empty field to have a chat. He's a good father and she is an only child. But his behavior that day was extremely creepy. I thought I was a goner.
11. Limits Officially Reached
Here is a very creepy thing that happened to me. One winter, I was pushing my limits and winter camping a lot, but I had this crazy tent with a fireplace. The limits part was just the fact that I was solo and pretty remote in these places. This was rural southwestern Colorado canyon country. There wasn't that much snow at all on the ground, but it was zero degrees that night.
Well, it was a full moon and I was restless. So at about 2:00 in the morning, I got out of my tent with the fire still going and went for a long walk. I ended up climbing up some stuff that was probably a quarter or half a mile from my tent and vehicle, but up above it so I could still see down on my tent and campsite clearly.
It was really beautiful down there, dimly lit from the inside by the stove's fire and dimly lit from the outside by the big moon. I was enjoying myself and just about to head back down when I suddenly heard distant gravel crunching. I had been there since noon that day and not a single vehicle had driven past, so I was kind of put off and decided to stay up there until whoever it was drove past.
The noise slowly grew louder and, eventually, I could see that it was a car on the same road. So, I stayed put and watched. It was going really slow. I could see a lighter being used quite a bit by the driver. It appeared to be a really old car. So I'm just watching, still in a very wistful mood and feeling somewhat powerful from my perch.
They approach the bend where they'll be able to see my tent from, and round the corner. Their brake lights immediately come on. They slow way down and seem to pause and stare at my tent for an eternity. I was now on high alert and feeling very nervous. I had nothing to defend myself with, just a hatchet down by the tent for firewood.
But they eventually start driving again. I'm pretty relieved but still shaken up. I’m now thinking about what to do if they come back. So, I decided to chill for a little longer and make sure I see them actually exit the area. Nope. They turned around a bit down the road and came back. I watched as they parked a ways down the road, got out, and started walking down the road towards my camp.
I watched the distant shadow approach my tent, look all around the outside, mess with my vehicle, and then walk back to its car and leave. I did not go back down to my tent for the rest of the night. I just stayed where I was and never took my eyes off the tent until the sun came back up in the morning. By then, I had already started to wonder whether I had imagined the whole thing.
As I approached the campsite, I saw that there were clear footprints in the snow on the outside of my tent, indicating that it really did happen. I kept imagining what it would have been like to have just woken up and not known what happened, just seeing the footprints. After that incident, I never went camping again unarmed.
12. Peeping Tom
I once lived in a sort of bad neighborhood, in a very tiny house with just myself and my brother who was rarely there. It was an old house, so it was a little creepy and also felt like anyone who wanted to could have broken in. One night, I was getting ready for bed. It was pretty late on a hot summer night and we didn't have A/C, so I opened my bedroom window.
I began to slip out of my clothes and change for bed. As soon as I put my pajama shirt on, I heard something that will forever stay seared into my brain. A low, masculine voice said, "Let's see that chest again." I think my whole body stopped working for at least five seconds while I absorbed the fact that there was a creepy man spying on me from right outside my window and I was alone in a house that he could easily get into if he so wished.
It was the first and only time in my life that I have ever called the local authorities. I had a full-blown panic attack while waiting for the officers to show up, and the very nice dispatch lady had to calm me down on the phone while I waited. On the bright side, it was an apparently slow night for the officers and they sent no less than three cars to come and help me.
I was so happy when I moved out of that house...
13. Eye Of The Tiger
I work in a grocery store in a very rural area. When my son was an infant, I would take him with me to work most days. One day, this soldier comes in and he's just as nice as can be. Then, he sees my son and starts talking to him in a cutesy baby voice, saying how cute he is. Then, out of nowhere, and in the same cutesy voice, he says to my son "Oh you're so cute! I just wanna gouge your little eyes out!"
It caught me way off guard. I just laughed nervously before picking my son up and walking into the back room.
14. You Saved The Day
When I was 17, my friend and I were walking down the street near my house at about 1:00 AM. We lived in a dense neighborhood dominated by three-story houses. We came around a corner to see this huge man on his knees, standing over a woman. He was furiously smashing her head into the concrete sidewalk. His muscles were huge and bulging.
He reminded me of the Hulk. Only, he was not green. He was red. Red as if he was having heatstroke. We screamed at him right away. He looked up, and I will never forget that face. There was snot pouring out of his nose. Long strands of it hung all the way down to the woman's head. His eyes were bright white, crazed, wide, and far too circular.
His face expressed a murderous fury that I had never seen before, and hope I never see again. He lifted the woman's head by her hair, and with a loud "crack" spiked it into the cement like a football, and screamed, "You want some of this, huh!" I had not seen my friend pick up the rock he had, but he threw at the guy's snarling face. He hit him right in the nose.
It was a big rock, but it did not even phase the guy. The guy lunged at my friend, who took off running. The guy took off chasing my friend. I knew there was no way a guy that size would be able to catch up to my buddy who was a track and field athlete. I ran to help the woman. Her hair was all over the place, and dark red blood was gushing from a huge deep gash across her forehead.
I could not believe she was still conscious. I tried to tell her I was here to help and she became combative. She started punching me, screaming to leave her man alone. I was afraid that her screaming would bring that monster back to us. With that thought, I said "screw this" to myself. I grabbed her wrists, dragged her to the nearest door, and started pounding on it.
I was scared that the guy would be back before I got to someplace safe. Two men opened the door and pretty much freaked out when they saw that I was restraining a small woman covered in blood. I think they were about to take me out, but I screamed "Call an ambulance!" I told them that we needed to get inside before the abuser came back. I told them "He WILL come back!"
We quickly dragged the woman into the hallway, then shut and locked the front door. One of the guys called the authorities and they showed up in what seemed like seconds. An ambulance arrived soon after. My buddy, seeing the lights of the squad cars, returned to the scene. He had outrun the guy and gotten to a store where he could call for help.
So I guess they were already on the way before we made the call. The officers had a lot of questions, of course. We had no idea who the guy was. We never saw him or the woman before. In the end, they gave us a card and said that if we ever see this guy in the area again, we should call them right away. Like I would even hesitate!
The next day, the events of the night before were in the paper. I read the article sitting on my porch. It said that the woman was in critical condition. It mentioned my name as well as my buddy. It also said that the man was yet to be identified, and was yet to be apprehended. Here is the part that really messed with my head.
The place where this happened was one block away from my porch. I looked up and could see the spot where he had been smashing her head. I remember thinking, "That evil man is still out there!" and then, looking down at the paper, "He knows my name." Two weeks later I turned 18, and I immediately boarded a plane to boot camp. This guy scared me THAT much.
15. Mechanical Mind
When I was around 12 years old, a neighbor had a party where I met a girl my age. My mom was happy to see me making friends, so we headed to my house to play games. My dog was very sweet and had never been angry or growled ever. This girl walks up to him to pet him, and he immediately growls and barks at her.
I couldn't believe it, but even at that age, I believed you don't just ignore a dog's intuition. So, I take note of the sign, and we go play and then go for a walk. Not even ten minutes into the conversation, I made a disturbing realization. It was clear that this girl is an obvious sociopath. I realized what I and the dog had felt about her. She was empty and fake, in a very visceral way.
She starts talking about assault, and saying things like “Doesn't that sound interesting? How do the logistics of it work?” She specifically wondered how one could assault another person while also holding a knife to their neck at the same time without losing their balance. Her parents invited me to spend the night at their house. I declined.
16. On The Road Again
I lived in a rather rural area, but on a road that takes you to the local gas station and Walmart. It's just gotten dark, and I'm pulling into my yard after getting gas. Walking on the road is a man with a bag and a young girl. There is no sidewalk, so they are literally walking in the middle of the street. It seemed very odd right from the start.
They came from a direction where there isn't a store for 10 miles, and the direction they were headed in didn't have a store for another three. I'm still in my car, but in front of my house. I think about going in and telling my parents, but instead, I just go over and ask if they are okay. I ask if they had a car breakdown. The man says no.
He doesn't take the opportunity to elaborate. The whole thing is weird, and I'm the cautious type. Since he has a kid with him and I want to make sure nothing sketchy is going on, I volunteer to give them a ride. I ask where they're headed and he says, “Just up the road a bit.” How informative. The girl gets in the back seat and the man sits up front with me.
I forget the name he used, but he then says to the girl: "Stacy, I mean Amber, isn't it nice that this girl is giving us a ride?" He got the girl's name wrong. This whole time I've been trying to judge her demeanor to see if she feels safe and if this is her father, so that didn't help. It's fully dark now and he tells me to take the turn away from the gas station and street lights.
At this point, I'm thinking the joke is on him, because if he tries anything I'll floor it, without hesitation, into a tree that will hit his side first. We are coming up on an abandoned restaurant now, and he tells me I can let them off in the parking lot. He still hasn't told me anything about them, so I ask “Do you live around here?” He just says “Yup” and I let them out.
They thank me and I go on my way. In retrospect, it's pretty funny because I'm sure he thought nothing of it, but I spent the entire ride contemplating every paranoid violent possibility. I've never seen them again since.
17. Getting The Message
I first got social media when I was about 13. I wasn't very smart about using it, so I was always talking to these random people that I didn't know. One day, some guy who claimed to be from my school sent me a message and we started talking. Being 13 and naive, I talked to him for days and developed a "crush" on him.
He asked me if I wanted to meet up to "hang out" and we even planned a specific time and place to do so. But as the time approached, I became a little skeptical. I made the smart choice to ask my older sister, who was the age the guy claimed to be, if she knew him. She didn't, which was a red flag to me, since the school is small and it's impossible to not know someone there.
I decided not to meet the guy, and I blocked him on social media too. I was creeped out that he had obviously been lying to me. The scariest part? About three years later, I saw a news article with that guy's name. Turns out he didn't lie about that, or the fact that he was from my town. But he was really 25 years old.
Why was he in the news? He was convicted of assaulting three young girls who he'd lured to his house through social media.
18. A Real Headbanger
Several years ago, I had to spend the night in a psych ward. I couldn't sleep the entire night that I was there for because this creepy woman, who was also staying overnight, was banging her head against the wall and shrieking at the top of her lungs all night. It was a very strange and horrifying experience...
19. A Shot In The Dark
My older brother and I were once playing in a cemetery in a small Texas town. The cemetery sat next to some railroad tracks which led into an unfamiliar part of town. It's a huge cemetery and there was no one around. Then, we suddenly heard these little popping sounds, and pieces of the headstones began flying off around us.
We looked toward the railroad tracks and, off in the distance, there was an old man shooting at us. So scary.
20. There’s No Place Like Your Home
When I was younger and we had just moved to this town, the lady who lived down the block from us attempted to break into our house. She banged on the windows but couldn't get in. Fast forward about six years, and there she is again outside of our new house on the other side of town, asking us if we can help her with some gas money.
21. Tarzan The Ape Man
I took my ex-girlfriend to Red Rocks one evening. It's a natural amphitheater that is sometimes used for concerts just outside of Denver. If there isn't a concert going on, it's just a park that you can run around in. We got down to the stage without being bothered. Then, we see this silhouette of some guy not too far away.
He is creeping around and trying to be quiet, but I could make out his shape while my ex could hear him breathing. We go up a few rows of steps and make a big circle around him to get to the steps. The guy is following us. We climb the stairs looking back at him. He'd creep from seats to the side of the wall. He must have thought he was being stealthy and he followed us up like that.
We didn't let on that we knew he was there until the last few steps. I had my ex run for it with the car keys while I half ran, keeping myself between her and the guy. At this point, the guy is following us while doing an ape impersonation. He was literally running with his hands on the ground and grunting loudly with every step.
When we get to the car, he is hiding from us. My ex unlocks the doors while I look around. But it wasn’t over yet…we get in and the guy jumps out at us from behind another car just as I start my engine. He beats on my windshield a few times, yells something that I don't understand, and then just runs off. He was probably on something pretty powerful…
22. He’s Not Who You Thought He Was
A man just got convicted for breaking into multiple people’s houses, tying them up, and violently assaulting them. Although he only got caught recently, the attacks were 33 years ago. When the story was in the news, my dad and I were shocked. This man worked at the ticket booth at our nearest big train station. We both used to say hi to him every day, because he was so friendly.
I just found out about this today. I'm fairly creeped out.
23. Musical Interlude
I'm a DJ in a local bar. I’ve met many, many weird and wonderful people in my time—emphasis on weird—but one stands out in particular. Her name is Alice, and she lives in her own wonderland 24/7. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she's harmless. She's always happy and dances like she's auditioning for a new workout DVD, but she's the kind of person you don't wanna make eye contact with.
The creepiest moment with Alice had to be this one night when I was working. I had the headphones on, doing what I do, when I suddenly became aware of someone standing to the right of me, not dancing. I instantly got the feeling that you get when you know someone is staring at you, and you just have to look back.
So I did. What I saw was Alice staring right at me with the strangest "smile" on her face. I say smile but it wasn't a nice look. Her teeth and gums were in full view, and she had a crazy look in her eyes. "What on earth??" was my initial reaction. I stuck the headphones on again and continued what I was doing. Alice continued what she was doing too.
After a good couple of minutes, I removed the headphones and asked her, "Is there anything in particular I can help you with, Alice? Do you want a song request played or something?" Her reply will stay with me for the rest of my life. She just calmly said to me, "No, I'm good! Just showing you my teeth!" Umm, say what now??
24. A Cultured Form Of Crazy
When I was around 13, I was sitting at the airport with my family waiting for a flight when a woman in the waiting area just got up and started loudly quoting from King Lear for no apparent reason. She was wearing pajamas, and didn’t appear to be directing her words to anybody in particular. She also paused after every few lines to awkwardly giggle. The experience was very unsettling to witness.
25. A Familiar Face
I remember when I was younger I was playing hide and seek with my cousins at my grandparents’ house. I went into my grandparents’ room and hid under the bed. All of a sudden, an undressed old man walked in and scared the heck out of me. I then realized it was my grandfather, who had just gotten out of the shower without knowing I was in there.
Mentally scarred for life, and he will never know.
26. Dining And Diving
One time many years ago, I was sitting in a McDonald’s in New York City eating a cheeseburger and minding my own business. All of a sudden this big fellow comes right up to me, pats me on the head, giggles enthusiastically, and then runs away. I have no idea what this guy’s deal was, but he creeped the heck out of me.
27. If I Only Had A Hammer
One time, I was on a late-night Greyhound bus ride from Sacramento to San Francisco. There was a creepy-looking dude sitting right across the aisle from me. In his hands, he was holding a hammer. He had no luggage. Just a hammer. Nothing else. He had this weird look in his eyes, too. I have never had a more awkward moment than when he and I made eye contact.
28. He Bit Off More Than He Could Chew
I remember back in high school, I was hanging out with a new group of friends. What was weird was that they warned me to "never touch Fergie's hat." I didn't get what that meant, but okay. Fergie was a big tall guy with red hair. He was nearly twice my size. Well, one day, Fergie was being annoying and obnoxious to me, and at one point he got all up in my face.
Irritated, I bat my hand at him. I didn't intend it to hit him. I just wanted him to instinctively flinch away. Well, he did flinch away. But, in doing so, I managed to accidentally knock his hat off of his head. “Uh oh,” I heard someone in the group literally gasp. Fergie glared at me and suddenly darted forward. He bit me on the shoulder.
I was too startled to fight back because I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Suddenly, he pushed me backward until I was sitting on the wall behind me. He lifted my leg up and then bit me on the shoe. And then he started laughing. I tried to kick at his face but missed, and he kept laughing. I grabbed my backpack and left the group.
I never hung out with them ever again. A week later, one of the girls spotted me and started talking to me. She said, "You know, you should come back and hang out with us again. Fergie really misses you." I got chills and said, "Um, thanks but no thanks." I then quickly walked away to my class and never spoke of this whole matter again.
29. A Strange Enemy
When I was a youngling, my brother and I once went for a walk in the woods behind our new house. We came upon an unfamiliar area and noticed plaster body parts thrown around willy-nilly. We kept walking and discovered a mannequin that appeared to have been destroyed. Then, we discovered dozens of lifelike plaster mannequins lying around in various states of disarray.
Some had burn marks, some were tied to trees with forks and knives stuck into them, and others hung by their necks from high up branches. The mannequins were all dressed in human clothes and featured detailed facial expressions of pain and fear. We left terrified, and wondered who in the world would have done this and why.
Whoever did it was by far the creepiest person I have ever encountered, even indirectly.
30. Car Trouble
When I was five years old, a guy popped up out of nowhere and threw my mom out of the car as she was entering the door. I was in the back seat at the time. The man shoved his way into the car and was about to start the engine. He didn’t know that he’d messed with the wrong person. My mom ripped the door open and fought the guy off. She saved my life. I love her more than words can express.
31. This Is My Stop
My friend and I were once building a treehouse in the woods behind my house. And by treehouse, I mean nailing some boards to a tree to use as steps. That is as far as our treehouse plans got. But I digress. There we were, nailing cut up 2x4s to the tree, when we suddenly heard a clanking metal sound. We turned around to look.
Behind us, on an old ten-speed bike, is this tall, lanky fellow who is as white as a ghost for lack of a better term. He sees us and stops, turns his bike around, and bolts off. It freaked us out and we came tearing out of the woods, leaving the tools and everything behind. We went back later to get them, like we were medics in a war zone going in for someone wounded, running and ducking behind stumps and trees, grabbing the goods and bolting.
32. A Little Tied Up At The Moment
My cousin and I went out drinking in Ohio one night. I was totally intoxicated. I stepped outside for some fresh air from the crowded bar. There was this guy outside who was kind of lanky and having a smoke. Feeling disoriented, I sat on the bench to rest my head a bit. The guy immediately came up to me and started talking.
He said: “Dude, you ain’t ever gonna make it in the real world. If I had my way, I'd take you back home with me to my tool shed where I'd tie you to the wall and torment you for as long as you live.” Alright then. Thinking on my feet, I said: “You know what? That sounds like a lot of fun. I definitely want to do that! Let me just go use the bathroom first real quick.”
I went back into the bar, marched straight over to the men's restroom, and locked the door. I stayed in the stall for a few minutes until my head cleared up. It took me a while to register what had just happened and my faculties were still not at their full capacity. After calming myself down, I exited the bathroom and told my cousin that we should leave right away.
33. The Bad Guy Next Door
When I was a kid, my grandparents lived next door to this creepy couple who kept trying to get me and my cousins to come and sleep over in this little shack that they lived in. None of us ever went, and we all thought that these people were scary as heck. Years later, this couple was in the news for having kidnapped and killed a bunch of children…
34. Curbside Pickup
I was walking to the parking garage on campus late at night after studying for my finals. As I am walking to the pedestrian overpass leading to the garage, I notice a girl, maybe 18 or 19 years old, walking alone in her bare feet. It strikes me as odd, but I keep walking until she sits down on a curb and puts her head in her lap.
Concerned, I walk over to her and say, "Excuse me, is everything alright?" As soon as I speak, she stands straight up and starts walking towards me, but looking past me with a glazed look in her eyes. By this time, I don't know what to do. So I just stand there while she walks directly by me, almost touching shoulders with me, all the while looking directly ahead.
Eventually, she walked out of sight. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen.
35. A Pocketful Of Miracles
When I was 18 years old, I worked the evening shift at a convenience store. For three nights in a row, three stores from the same chain had been held up at gunpoint in my small city, so my manager had basically been prepping me all week to get robbed. I was, understandably, on edge all night. I thought my life was at risk.
I was down to the last few hours of my shift and I was finally starting to calm down a little bit when a guy with his hat pulled down low walked in, came right up to the counter, and started reaching into the inside of his jacket. He said "You know those days when you should've just stayed home? I think today is one of them."
Time immediately started moving in slow motion at this point and my heart was beating out of my chest. After what felt like an eternity, the guy pulled his wallet out of his jacket and asked for a pack of smokes. Anticlimactic, I know, but scary nonetheless. It was the most scared I have ever been of another person.
36. Glory Off The Battlefield
My aunt's husband was the weirdest and creepiest guy I have ever met. He is a former soldier. He always had very wide eyes when he spoke, and was tall and lanky. He often talked about wanting to start up a network of civilian armies or something like that. This huge, creepy smile would always appear on his face when that topic came up.
37. Bargain Basement
My mother used to work in real estate when she was younger. Once, she was asked to go out, alone, to a creepy and strange house in the middle of the country with a seeking buyer. This buyer was an equally creepy and strange man. My mom kept getting a bad feeling from this guy, and he seemed nervous and kept jumping around the whole time they were speaking.
Eventually, he asked her to go down and see the cavernous, unfinished basement with her. Very calmly, she responded, "Oh, no, I'll just wait up here while you check it out." The more she thought about that afterward, the creepier it got. When she told her boss about it the next day, he said that under no circumstances were you supposed to ever go out to a house like that alone with any customer.
38. Room Service
I once worked as a live-in staff member in a college dormitory. During the summer, we housed the few summer school students who remained on campus. They totaled about 30. It may be significant to point out that these students tended to be highly academically-motivated, often high-stress students. They also tended to be more on the quiet side.
One warm day in late June, my office received a call from a concerned sibling, saying that she and her family had been unable to reach her brother. Her brother apparently lived by himself in a room on our summer school floor. This wasn't unusual, as our office frequently dealt with students avoiding their kin due to frayed nerves or general social awkwardness.
Since I was on my own, I decided to ignore the usual protocol for this situation and just pop up to his room to check on him. When I arrived on his floor at around 2:00 in the afternoon, the floor seemed deserted as I had expected. I found his room number and immediately noticed the sound of a movie playing on a TV or computer from behind the door. I knocked three times and announced that I was a staff member checking on his health and safety. There was no answer.
This is when my instincts started to buzz. I had worked in residence halls for a number of years as a professional, and something about all the pieces of this puzzle weren't adding up. The family concerns about his health and safety, the electronics running, summer school students, and their idiosyncratic behavior, something wasn't right.
I knocked on the door one more time for good measure and again announced myself as the hall director. I finally keyed into the room and my spider-sense went off even stronger. The room appeared relatively vacant. The student appeared to be living out of a suitcase, which is unusual for someone staying no less than eight weeks for a summer school session.
I turned to leave, planning on trying to reach the student later in the afternoon or evening. As I turned to leave, I noticed another odd piece of evidence that caught my attention…The old, creaky accordion closet doors were closed. Odd. I couldn't remember the last time I had actually seen someone use those dysfunctional old doors. Then, my intuition spiked higher than ever.
OH NO. I realized that I was alone in a room with a potentially unstable student who may, in fact, have just taken his own life. Ugh. I felt like I was talking to myself when my voice cracked as I spoke to the closed doors and announced my name and title and that I would be opening those accordion doors in three seconds.
I fumbled with the latch on the doors, and finally managed to get them disengaged. As I slid the doors apart, I was unprepared for what came next. I don't know what I really expected to see, but I'll tell you what I didn't expect: a seven-foot-tall student staring at me embarrassingly as though I had found his secret hangout.
We stared at each other for a good 15 seconds without blinking, breathing, or speaking.
I finally realized what was going on and my natural emotion was disbelief. All I could think to say was, "Umm, are you in here hiding from me?" He looked at me and said, "Yeah." My heart was still racing. I turned to leave and, before I shut his door, I turned back to him and said, "Call your sister, she's worried about you. And, frankly, I am too."
39. Got Any Plans This Evening?
This complete stranger approached me in Hollywood once. He was super tall and bald. On top of that, he had an absurdly protruding belly and super-long arms, like a wax figure that's started to melt. Then I noticed that one of his eyes was clouded-white and he was missing a tooth or two. But that was just one part of what terrified me.
He walked up to me as I was drinking coffee on a patio, stopped inches away from my face, smiled at me, and said, "I might get rid of you tonight" in a low voice before walking off.
40. Cooking The Books
A co-worker's cousin who I met at a cookout was the eeriest person I have ever encountered. He had no emotion whatsoever in his eyes when he spoke, and he just gave off a generally weird vibe. He looked at everyone kind of oddly, but the way he looked at women felt predatory. Any time I broke from conversations with others, he appeared.
He kept bringing up how people are touch-starved these days, especially men. I just kept saying, "that's deep" and would then dart off to find someone else to talk to. The fourth time he brought up men being touch-starved, he asked what I thought guys should do about it and got way too close to me. I told him he should get out my face and go get a freaking massage.
41. Taking You For A Ride
The scariest person I ever met was a cab driver. The drive with him was so terrible that I actually considered getting out at a stoplight. But I couldn’t because I was in a hurry to get to where he was driving me. From start to end, he was loudly sniffing and saying I smelled so good he could "eat me up." He also kept trying to make up his mind about what kind of flower I smelled like. He was sniffing audibly all the while.
42. Unholy Alliance
The creepiest person that I have ever met in my entire life was this person who went to my church for a little while a few years back. He was 48 years old but hung out exclusively with people half his age, and he always made all the university-aged girls at his previous church feel uncomfortable. He was just the kind of character that gave everyone a bad feeling whenever he was around.
43. Van Life Gone Wrong
One day I was walking home from somewhere around 7 AM. Two vans began to circle around the block while I was walking home. This continued for about five minutes until one of them stopped behind me. That’s when I knew something was really, really wrong. One of the men got out and stared me down. He was in his 50s with long white hair and a beard. As soon as the other man started to open his door, I ran away as fast as I could. That was a very close call.
44. Just Passing Through
I was with my cousins playing in the woods circa age seven when this guy in an all-black outfit just sprints right past us. Two minutes later, about 15 uniformed officers come and question us about the guy. I wonder what would have happened if he had thought he had gotten away from them, and that we were alone there with him…
45. She Longs To Be (Close To You)
In Toronto, there is a subway system run by the “TTC,” or Toronto Transit Commission. They often close off certain parts of the subway route in order to do some upgrades or fix bits. Lately, they've been shutting down the subway rides into the downtown area on the weekends. Anyway, they were doing some upgrades on the tracks one time while I was on one of their trains.
When we got to the area where the folks were working, we were going by pretty slowly and making sure not to run over anyone while they scampered out of the way. Then, out of nowhere, the power cut out. Now, I should say that I wasn't the only one in the train car. The cars are decently long and I was at one end. Some woman was at the other end.
When I first walked onto the train, there was a giant bubble of empty seats around her. She was displaying the typical signs of a crazy person and everyone was avoiding her. But by the time the lights went out, she and I were the only ones left on the train. Even though we were sitting on opposite ends, I became very nervous.
She was laughing audibly, and I tried to tune her out by listening to some music. But that never really worked. It was so chilling that my brain sort of just kept ignoring the music and focusing on her. So, eventually, I just unplugged the music and sat back, trying not to poop my pants. When the power cut out, she immediately stopped laughing.
In fact, she stopped making any noise at all. When the lights came back on about five seconds later, what I saw made me want to jump out of my skin. She wasn't at the far end of the subway car anymore. She was now about three seats away from me. Staring at me. The second the train stopped at the next station, I bolted for the door as fast as I could.
After she “relocated,” she didn't make another sound the entire time. She just kept staring at me. It was the single creepiest moment of my entire life.
46. All The Lonely People
Growing up, I always wanted to go on a bike ride at night. Something about it just seemed really cool to me. It wasn't until I was 13 that my mom finally let me. She told me to wear my helmet, take my phone and flashlight, and follow the parameters she had set for where I was allowed to go. She gave me about four miles, which was a lot to me.
So, right after the sun had set, I was off. I loved it. I rode along this path for 10 minutes before the only thing I could see was some of the lights from the houses on the inside of the limits. After 15 minutes of riding along this dirt path, I suddenly hear singing. It sounded like it was just a few feet in front of me. I stop riding to hear it better. It was a woman's voice.
She was singing “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles. But she wasn't singing the words, just the melody. Her voice was strange. You know how when you have phlegm in your throat, your voice gets kind of scratchy? That's what her voice sounded like. I inch forward to try and see her. I get close enough to see the silhouette of her hair bouncing up and down, like she was headbanging.
I decided to get my flashlight out. I'm thinking that maybe this person is in need of help or something. Or maybe this is an insane person and the light will scare them away. So I take the flashlight out of my pocket, point it at her, and turn it on. The moment the light hit her, she stopped moving completely. She was facing away from me.
She had disgusting hair that seemed to be sticking together in clumps. Some of her hair was ripped off, too. She was wearing a very oversized, bright red hoodie. I was almost too scared to move. I think she was, too. I conjured up as much bravery as I could and said "Sorry" in a very, oops-this-is-the-wrong-room kind of way. She didn't respond.
I turned off the flashlight and put it back in my pocket. Just as I was turning my bike around, she screamed. She screamed in an awful, horrifying high-pitched voice. I nearly pooped myself as I threw myself back onto my bike. I heard her voice getting closer to me. I booked it as fast as I could. I didn't once look back behind me, and I didn't stop pedaling.
Her screaming eventually grew quieter and quieter until it dissolved into the howling of the wind.
47. An Evil Man
I occasionally worked with a man who always seemed a bit "off" to me. I could never really place it. I thought maybe he was just kind of slow. I felt bad for being judgemental and just did my best to be nice to him. I later came to find out that he'd spent time behind bars. He told everyone it was for substances, but then, the disturbing truth emerged.
In reality, it was for abducting a bunch of kids and some other messed up stuff. This all came to light after he abducted two young girls from our community. One of the girls escaped from his place and told the authorities what had happened. Tragically, he took the life of the other one before taking his own life. Always trust your gut.
48. Dog’s Best Friend
My first semester at university, I got stuck taking all night classes and didn't get out until about 10:00 PM most evenings. I then would walk from the campus to the New Jersey transit station. Not too far a walk, but it starts to feel spooky in that area at night and I wasn't 100% sure where I was going since I was still new to the school.
So here I am, already a little on edge, when all of the sudden I hear a sound that will haunt me until the day I die. There was someone barking at me. That's right, barking. I look up and discover a man sitting up in the tree barking and growling down at me as I walk by. I was freaked out, but afraid that if I ran it might provoke him to follow me. So, I speedwalked to the corner, then ran across the street and didn't stop till I was at the train platform.
49. An Unsolved Mystery
My friend is a female who we’ll nickname "Mystery." Last year, Mystery gets her first car. She takes it on her first drive alone, to McDonald’s. Afterward, Mystery drives a few hours to her best friend’s house, who had moved away upstate a few months earlier. Halfway through the drive, it happens. She feels a tap on her shoulder as she’s driving.
Some stranger pops up from under the back seat and asks her if her name is Mystery. She slams on the brakes and jumps out of the car. All the surrounding cars stop too to see what the fuss was all about. In front of this whole crowd, the guy gets out and jumps off the low bridge they were on. He was never seen again or identified.
Sources: Reddit,
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