AskReaders: What is the creepiest thing that has happened to you? – Part 5

11-15 Creepiest Thing that has Happened to You

11. When I was about 18 some friends and I took a road trip about 7 hours or so down to the Apilachicola National Forest near Tallahassee FL. We were going to do a little car camping, drink a few ice cold Natty Lights. You know, 18 year old stuff. As such we didn’t want to be bothered by any park rangers so we drove waaaay deep into the woods.

Got there, set up camp, had said Natty Lights, and me and a guy decided to go do a little exploring, so we walked about 100 yards from our site back to the main road, saw another path directly across from us, and started walking. Immediately we started seeing signs that someone had lived there for a while. Big bags of trash, stuff like that. It should have been a huge red flag to turn around. But you know, 18. Nothing could hurt us. So we get to this camp site of an older white guy living out of his van. Clothes lines strung up, coolers placed around it, and a big gorgeous dog, I think maybe a golden retriever. We tried to back out, but he sees us and starts talking. He’s friendly enough, asks us where we’re from, tells us about some cool spots to check out in the park, we end up chatting for ten minutes and going on our way. I kept thinking to myself how odd it was that he gave directions in steps, not yards or miles. Guy always seemed to be off balance. Not stumbling drunk, but like he was walking on a balance beam, swaying side to side. Oh and he was SUPER excited to talk about national parks and forests where we were from.

Ok. Camping part over. We went back to our tents. Fast forward two months, same buddy calls me late at night and tells me to turn on TV to the news, I oblige. I see an old dude with a van. You see where this is headed but I didn’t, so I get pissed at my friend for waking me up. “No, WATCH.” And then I see the golden retriever and it all clicks. What the fu*k. That man’s name was Gary Michael Hilton, convicted of at least four murders. He kidnapped and murdered a girl on Blood Mtn GA, an older couple in the Pisgah NC, and a girl in the Apilachicola at that camp site not long after we left. Yes, the very same places he had been talking to us about.

Obviously we call the cops, they put us in touch with the FBI, and we get flown down to take investigators to the camp site. Point out every spot we saw anything, tell them exactly what he told us, and show them the places he described to us. I didn’t find out until after the trial, but apparently they found what appeared to be partially destroyed human finger bones in an area near the site. I had to fly down again to testify.

12. I was camping with family/friends up in the mountains. I was sharing a tent with my brother (call him Luke) and another friend (call him Evan). Luke, Evan, and I weren’t tired when everyone retreated to their tents for the night, but the fire was dimming out and we were bored so we went inside our tent to watch Adventure Time on my laptop till it died. We all passed out after a few episodes and I woke up sometime during the night into an episode of sleep paralysis.

I have weird sleep habits and experience sleep paralysis every few months or so. For those who haven’t had it, basically you’re awake but you cannot move, and sometimes experience auditory and visual hallucinations. I was aware of this so I didn’t have a full on heart attack when I started hearing shuffling noises outside my tent, which continued and got louder and closer until the fabric of the tent itself was being touched by something. My computer hadn’t yet died so I could see my surroundings in the dim light of the screen. I watched the fabric compress as something pushed against it sporadically about four feet off the ground, then moved around the tent towards me. I watched three distinct impressions follow this ‘creature’ around the side of the tent. It looked like a claw. I was terrified and filled with adrenaline but another part of me remained calm, assuring my body it was all a dream. I couldn’t do anything anyway, so my fear was pointless. But as I continued to observe it my sleep paralysis began to fade, and I realized I could move. No longer so convinced I was dreaming, I reached over and shoved Luke awake. I tried to get him to look and see if there was really something there but I must have sounded like I was sleep talking because he just rolled over and went back to sleep, waving me off. Eventually the rustling stopped and I was tired and groggy enough that I quickly fell back asleep.

In the morning I’d completely forgotten about it, that is, until my brother in law (who was in the other tent, call him Dean) said to us: “It’s a good thing we put the dog in the car last night. There was a bear here while we were sleeping.” Dean pointed out the tree where we’d strung up our trash (so animals wouldn’t get into it) and the fresh, gaping claw marks about nine feet up the trunk. It hit me like a truck. I had seen the bear and calmly watched it test the fabric of my tent 12 inches from my face.

13. Just a few weeks ago we made our way to a very remote valley that is very difficult to access, think walking on one-inch ledges, dropping into narrow crevasses, etc. The valley ends in a sharp drop with a waterfall that is about 100 ft high. We were almost at the drop when we heard a whistle. It sounded a lot like a hiking whistle, but we only met one group of people the entire day, and they had stopped way before we did as they thought the mountain slope was not passable. According to our calculations, that group should have long left and headed back to the base camp, so it made no sense. Then we heard another whistle. We yelled “Hello!” and immediately we heard a whistle back.

The whistle was coming up from the thick trees up on the very steep slope of the mountains encircling the valley, the slope was about 75-80 degrees. The only way we could make it up there would be if we were pulling ourselves up by tree branches and roots because it was so steep. Just as we were debating whether the whistle was indeed a hiker’s whistle, a helicopter suddenly rose from behind the waterfall. It rose right above us, then turned around and flew away. It was an unmarked helicopter, and the nearest air field is about 100 miles away.

We figured they had to have a search mission out for someone, so that MUST have been a hiker’s whistle. However, it was strange that the person would whistle repeatedly, but never yell back. We yelled again – the whistle recurred. Suddenly, we heard the helicopter rotor again. Not 3-4 minutes later, we saw the helicopter rise above the valley again, hover for about 30 seconds, then fly away over the mountain.

We went ahead and crossed the creek to climb the mountain slope. We scrambled up, grabbing onto roots and branches. The whistling ceased. We yelled a few times and no response.

It took us 4 hours to make our way out of there after. The bushes were so thick that at times we walked on branches above the ground and I could not see my hand in front of me. I still have no idea who was whistling. It was a VERY mechanical whistle. I’ve been out in the wilderness quite a few times and have never heard a bird whistle that was anywhere close to that.

14. While prospecting out here in the Cariboo region I came across a set of rock piles known as Chinese piles out in the middle of nowhere. These being here means someone did a lot of digging back in the old days so I started working, and after half an hour had about 10 grams of gold and was having a happy dance when I noticed the small standing stones on each of the rock walls. Each stone had several Chinese characters on them and in a moment of dread I realized they were graves.

I put the gold in a glass bottle I found nearby and left it behind, I also took down drawings of the symbols to show a local historian who later confirmed my suspicions that yes they were graves, and they likely hadn’t been seen in 150 years.

Chinese miners believed that if a miner died on site the ground became cursed by the fallen miners spirit, so they wouldn’t continue to mine the area and would tell anyone they met that the area was worked out, sometimes they would also do extra work to make the site look finished off so people wouldn’t end up digging up their comrades.

I’ve been back several times but I won’t dig there out of respect. The site is super creepy in the morning fog. You almost can see people’s outlines siting around the piles.

One of the stories my boss out here told me about was when he got involved with some sketchy folk from Prince George back in the 70s and went with them looking for some mining gear to steal so they could claimjump a site a few kms down the road. My boss went down this forgotten path into a clearing with two ancient bulldozers and a small cabin, the rest went to the bulldozers to see if they ran while my boss went into the cabin and was greeted by a skeleton laying on the bed with a bullet hole through his head. They brought in the cops and they figured the guy had been there since 1935 since that was the last date on the newspapers inside. I went to the same cabin with him a few weeks back and found the place had been burned down by quaders.

15. My grandma’s is a very stereotypical horror movie house. Small Midwest town, white and old looking home, on a farm, she even has a chipped wooden mother Mary nativity in the front yard (you get the picture). The worst is she has a cemetery about a half mile down the road.

Anyways, I used to sleep in the room in the corner on the top floor (my aunt’s room) and it had a wooden rocking chair in it. When I was younger I would wake up because I thought I heard it rocking, to the point where I would wake up my grandma and have to stay in her room. Well about 10 years later my mom, aunt and I during thanksgiving were talking about how creepy grandma’s house was. My aunt goes on to talk about how when she was younger the reason my mom and her ended up sharing a room was because she thought her room was haunted. She said she woke up one morning and the rocking chair was about two feet closer to her bed, and after that night it would start rocking on a nightly basis at midnight. It freaked me out.

16-20 Creepiest Thing that has Happened to You

16. Until a few years ago I still had an old slider phone. One day I got a random call asking for some girl named Sarah, I told them they had the wrong number and they intermediately hung up. For the next few months I would get these calls asking for Sarah about once or twice a week coming from different number and different sounding people. Sometimes these calls came at 3 in the morning. Well one day I got a call and like usual I said I didn’t know Sarah, and after they hung up I went to my contacts and hit redial. After I did the machine took over and said that number did not exist. I went back through my call history trying to call some other people that had called me with the same result, a machine telling me the number did not exist. Every time I would get these calls I would redial the number and still got the machine. I googled the numbers but all I learned is they were coming from North Dakota, Montana, basically everywhere in the Midwest which isn’t all that weird because I live there.

I started wondering what was going on so the next time I got a call asking for Sarah I said “oh yeah, she is right here” and the other person on the other end said “no she isn’t” and hung up. Then things started getting weird when I started getting calls from “unknown” numbers calling me. Whoever or whatever on the other end hanging up the second I said hello. The creepiest one I ever got was from a call I got where they didn’t hang up after I said hello, I could hear someone was on the other end just listening but they didn’t say anything, just something really uneasy about it. Eventually I switched phones and got a smart phone and I immediately stopped getting calls, I haven’t gotten a single random call in about 3 years now despite the fact I still have my old number from the old phone.

17. When I was on an ER rotation during med school we got a call about a 23 year old woman who was shot in the head, and who was already completely gone, but was reportedly 5 months pregnant so they were doing CPR until they got her to the hospital to see if the baby was viable. They got her to the ER and did an ultrasound and turned about baby was full term and they did a C-section in like under a minute and got the baby out.

I don’t think it’s so incredibly uncommon but it was pretty surreal to see a baby delivered from a dead person with their brain exposed and she was pretty close to the same age I was at the time.

18. When I was at a party a few years ago, it was right after I’d had a fight with my then-girlfriend and I was drinking kind of heavily (I’m generally a heavyweight but I was drinking a lot and fast). This one girl was constantly around me all night and I was warned by a couple of people that she was going to hit on me. Whatever, I can deal with it. She was flirting with me a little bit and I made sure to add in my girlfriend to the conversation topic so there was no misunderstanding. Didn’t matter. Every time I went to talk to someone else I would feel a small butt grab, and when I looked around she was backing up giggling. Once it started getting not-so-lightly I straight up told her to stop, I had a girlfriend.

Anyway later in the night when I was significantly drunk I was sitting down on a chair while most people were off in another room doing something else. Well she comes in and I guess decides this is the perfect chance. She sits on my lap and starts trying to kiss me and every time I move away she bites my neck. She starts to grab at my crotch too, and even after I hit her hand away it goes right back (remember I’m significantly drunk so not all my coordination is all there).

The last thing I remember is trying to get up to get her off my lap and then I wake up the next morning in a friend of mine’s room on the floor (one of the hosts). I walk out and ask her what happened and she told me the girl was trying to walk me out of the door, telling the others she was just taking me back to “take care of me” at her apartment. My friend said no dice and locked me in her room (while checking on me relatively often) so that the girl couldn’t sneak in and try anything. The girl apparently got very upset when this happened and stormed out.

19. Like many men in my generation, I went through the vest phase. Going to a club? Jazz that outfit up with a vest. Going to a friend’s wedding in the summer? Vest over a coat any damn day.

One evening some friends and I went to a small venue concert in San Diego (we all lived in/around LA). Did I have a black vest on over a collared long-sleeved shirt with a different pattern on the inside of the cuffs? Come on…we all did.

Met this woman in the crowd who was quite attractive. She was Italian and spoke English with a sexy accent. We hit it off and separated from group at the end of the concert to grab some drinks. We ended up at her place. Her apartment was sparse and spotless. The living room had a long, low couch (white leather) with a black lacquer coffee table. There was no other furniture, artwork, electronics, photos…nothing but this white couch and black table. The walls were white (and bare) and so was the carpeting.

The only two other rooms I could immediately see were a dining room/area and her kitchen. The dining room had a bar-height table (all black) but no chairs. The kitchen was completely bare. Just cabinets, appliances and counters. Nothing on those counters, nothing on the exterior of the fridge, no knickknacks on the walls, etc. Off a short hallway I saw two doors. I learned later that one went to the bedroom and I can only guess that the other opened to a bathroom.

We started messing around in the living room. As she removed her clothes she folded them in very particular and precise ways and placed them on the coffee table in an obvious pattern and order. The exception was her shoes. She put those on top of the dining room table. She did the same thing to my clothes/shoes, but she insisted I keep on only the black vest.

At this point I figure I’m dealing with a woman who has OCD or something similar. I figured I could deal because she was attractive, wanted to be naked with me, and wasn’t giving off any psychotic/dangerous vibes. Messing around intensified as we stood in the living room sans any clothes except my black vest. She was fiercely whispering lengthy strings of Italian in my ear. No idea what the hell she was saying, but one phrase was repeated over and over; Brigate Nere.

She steered us toward that short hallway and opened the door to her bedroom. The light from the hallway spilled into the room and I saw a large bed against one wall and no other furniture. The walls…

I could see two walls from my vantage point in the doorway. The one behind the headboard of the bed and the wall to the right of that one. Floor to ceiling, no blank space, they were covered in posters and pictures of people; individuals and groups. She pulled me in the rest of the way and flipped on the light switch. I did a slow 360. There was the bed. There was a closet door on one wall and a window on another. The ceiling had recessed lighting – four cans. Every inch of the walls and ceiling that could be covered with a poster or picture…were covered with a poster or picture. All were black and white. All were images of a single person or a group of people. I didn’t immediately recognize any of the people, but the settings, clothing and equipment suggested there were taken in Italy in the early 1940s.

While I was taking in the scenery she knelt on the floor in front of me and just stared at me with a gaze that was half spooky-vacant and half crazy-adoration. Every internal alarm I had was blaring at max volume so I told her I needed to leave. I started backing out of the room and she fu*king snapped. She lunged toward me while screaming in Italian. I jumped back to avoid her lunge and put my hands up in front of me in that universal “whoa-hold-on-let’s-take-a-second-to-sort-sh*t-out” gesture and loudly said, “I don’t understand what you are saying.”

Her demeanor didn’t change, but she switched to English and started babbling about Black Brigades, Italian Fascism and reincarnation. The whole time she was screeching about that I was circling the coffee table to keep it between us while rapidly putting on my clothes and maintaining eye contact with her. I made the move to the dining table to get my shoes and she threw herself on the floor and just started wailing. No words – just ear splitting wails and sobbing. I grabbed my shoes but didn’t stop to put them on until I got into the lobby of her apartment building.

So yeah, I met a crazy Italian woman who apparently thought I was some reincarnated Italian Fascist from World War II.

20. I was out hunting in Northern Ontario, no roads (except for logging roads) with in 130 km. I was late on the bear season so no one was out hunting in my quadrant. I found a nice camp site alongside a river and hunted from there. On the second day of my hunt I came across the bear tracks. I tracked it for about two hours, and then turned around.

This is when sh*t got very fu*kin weird. I always track on one side of the tracks and return on the other. About 200 meters down the east side of the tracks I ran into another human foot print which disappeared across the trail and into the woods on the west. My dog (czech wolfdog) didn’t seem to smell anything, so I returned to camp with minimal concern.

I got back to camp at around 7:30 at night made a quick dinner and had a cigar by the camp. At around 12:00 I heard a snap of a branch. After hunting for 20 years, only two things snap branches, bears, and humans. I grabbed my firearm and a flashlight and went out after the noise. Every 100 yards, I would scan with the flashlight. My dog freaked, started growling and advancing into the woods slowly. I pulled back on my leash to slow his advance and switched on my flashlight. I saw a pair of eyes looking right back at me. It stared for about five seconds and disappeared into the woods. On the walk back I felt anxious, scared, and uncomfortable. I could feel someone watching me.

The next night, the same thing happened. My dog went wild, like I have never seen him. He was whimpering, growling, and clearly very anxious. At this point i was terrified. I didn’t go hunting that day and didn’t close my eyes once. That night I sat up with my flashlight, constantly scanning the tree line. I guess I dozed off at around 1 and woke again at 3. I was sweating, confused, and very scared. I scanned the forest, and just barely visible about 25 yards in the forest, there was a man and his dog. He was looking right back at me. I stared to approach him, shouting to him. I got within 10 feet. He looked awfully disheveled and stank. The worst part was that he just stared and smiled. His eyes showed zero emotion and whispered “Good night”.

I ran back to my tent, packed it into my pack and loaded it onto the trailer of the ATV and drove out of there.