A lonesome road at night is a prime place for some spooky stuff to happen. Throw in fatigue or a case of the jitters and you’ve got a recipe for some creepy road trip stories.

These folks from around the world recently went online to share the creepiest and weirdest stuff they’ve ever seen while they were out on the road, exploring the old fashioned way. Keep those high beams on!

Photo by Jake weirick on Unsplash

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49. A storm to remember

I was driving though Kansas on the I-70 one night when I hit one of the craziest thunderstorms I’ve ever seen. It was so bad that the road started flooding a bit and I had to pull into a service plaza to wait it out.

As I was sitting in the truck watching the storm, there were a series of lightning strikes followed by a blackout. Suddenly, a massively bright light began moving behind the clouds, too slowly to be an aircraft but too fast to be part of the storm system. It moved up over the hills and trees before crossing directly overhead… then disappearing behind the service plaza.

The transit from tree line to plaza took maybe 5-10 minutes tops, and while it was overhead it cast everything in an eerie blue glow and lit up the parking lot. I seriously thought aliens were invading or something. Anyway, I kid you not, within 10 minutes of the creepy light disappearing the rain had completely stopped and the parking lot lights came back on. It was like someone had flipped a switch. I got outta there as quickly as humanly possible.

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48. That really sends a message

I slammed the brakes once because I saw a deer in my peripheral vision. Upon closer inspection, it was a mounted deer head on a stick in the middle of the woods. Slammed the gas after I realized that.

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47. Making friends in the street

Driving home from grad lab for a couple hours of sleep, about 4 in the morning (longish, time-sensitive experiment), not dawn yet, still pitch black. Turn a corner, and suddenly, someone runs into the street right in front of my car and just stops. So I stop.

I wait.

They don’t move.

Cautiously, I try to drive around.

They scream, run up and slam their hands on the hood of my car. With them so close, I realize he is totally naked and filthy.

He stares at me for a moment, then proceeds to run in wide circles, kinda listing to one side than the other, in front of my car.

After about two minutes of this, he lists hard to one side, far enough I felt safe quickly driving around him, very wide, on the other side that was now open.

Substances, man. Never a good idea.

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46. Eyes in the corn

Dad was driving at night, and I was looking out the window and saw two bright red pinpricks in the corn field, following us. I told my dad about it and he said, in the most calm, casual tone for this situation:

“Those are cornfield demons. Stay in the car and you’ll be okay.”

Cue me freaking out when he got out of the car not too long after to check a tire before getting back in.

I’m still not sure if that was an actual thing he believed or if he was using a situation to his advantage to teach me to not do anything stupid like that at night. Either ways, it worked, and I STILL have no idea what those two pinpricks were.

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45. Off the cliff

I was following a grey Toyota Tundra in a massive blizzard through Montana in McDonald pass. He was going pretty quick most of the way but must have been unfamiliar with how steep the final few miles are. He got away from me as I slowed down to about 35. Not 5 minutes later I passed his tire marks in the fresh snow that went off the side of the mountain. Pulled over and looked down to see his truck upside down and on fire about 300 yards down.

Called 911. He didn’t die but was burnt up pretty bad. Sad and scary and don’t go 50 in the snow just because you have a truck or 4wd!

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44. Cult shock

I was coming back home from a trip from Michigan and I saw these people wearing cult-like robes. One in town, one on a highway, and one in a park, all staring at me.

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43. Civil War re-enactor?

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42. Needs help, but won't take it

This woman was on the side of the road and asked me to come look at her car, which was parked in a large turn-off. I asked what was wrong and she just kept saying to come look. I apologized and drove away and she just stood there while I drove off, watching me go.

More weird than scary but it was night in the country and I was alone. Also, I offered to call someone for her but she said no. That makes me think I narrowly avoided something sinister.

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41. The invisible car

I was driving on the highway around two AM a few years back, heading home. I noticed while driving past a U-turn gap in the road that something got picked up by my headlights, but I couldn't tell what it was.

I look in my rear view and I can barely tell the black car pulling out of it with all its lights killed, as to be almost impossible to see. He started following me and I got pretty nervous about it. He kept his distance but kept on me for about 15 minutes while I kept speed and pretended like I hadn't noticed him incase he started to speed up.

After that, he turned his lights on and ripped past me at way above the limit. Turned out that he was a freaking cop driving illegally without lights on just to try and bust me for something. What an idiot. I was afraid I was going to get killed for my car that night.

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40. Stumbling on a major crime

When I was a kid, living in Charleston, S.C., my dad took me and my brother to a boat landing on a creek, right off of the Intracoastal Waterway to shoot off some fireworks we had left over from the 4th. (This boat landing was up in the sticks in a place called Wadmalaw Island - very sparsely populated and pitch black at night.)

When we pulled in the parking lot of the boat landing, (around 11pm), There was a 20'ish foot power boat nestled against the dock. The only people there were several guys wearing white boots and loading the back of an SUV with boxes from the boat. There was also a sports car, (not sure what kind).

We instantly got the heeby-jeebies, turned around, and hauled butt. About 30 seconds later, there was a car speeding towards us in the rear-view mirror. We were already going 80mph, (because my dad was convinced we had stumbled onto some kind of smuggling ring), and it was gaining very quickly on us.

We knew we couldn't outrun them, (my dad drove an '81 Audi Fox), so before we went around a curve in the road, we killed the headlights and pulled into the driveway of someone's house, ducked down and waited... That car that was chasing us flew by, (must have been going 100mph, easily).

We sat there for a few minutes and saw the car going back to the boat landing. Things could have ended very differently... I'm guessing it was a shipment of illegal substances?

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39. Ranting and raving

I’m a truck driver in the UK. Was driving through rural Scotland one night, going down a country lane. All of a sudden, I started to see flashing lights coming through the trees. Lights of all colours flashing through the branches and causing some really freaky looking shadows on the road.

I’m not a believer in aliens or anything, but my first thought was a UFO. Safe to say, I put my foot down and got out of there.

Found out the next day it was rave happening in a field. But at the time it half scared me out of my wits.

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38. That's certainly eerie

There’s a route that cuts across the southwest corner of South Dakota, sort of a shortest route from I-90 to I-80. I was driving through one winter right into a blizzard. It was pretty hairy I guess because the roads were closed. Highway patrol made us park in the lot of some local convenience store.

Next day the sun is shining bright and roads are clear. I’m on my way. As I drive, I start to notice these large dark rock-like shapes sticking out of the snow just off the shoulder of the road. Tons of them, like one every 10-15 feet. “Strange,” I thought absently. I’d never been on that road so who knows what they could be.

After a few minutes, I spotted one that was not-so-buried in the snow and the realization sank slowly into me. They were cows. I drove past probably 40 frozen just off the side of the road, literally just past the shoulder. Made me very sad to think they all froze standing up like that, wandering blindly in the snowstorm.

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37. The ghost in the road

I had to drive from Laredo, TX to Baton Rouge, LA one night. It was about 2am.

There is a particularly long and dark section of highway just outside Laredo: no buildings, towns or lights for about 50 miles. I was in the right lane coming up on a truck and pulled out into the left passing lane. As I was slowly overtaking this 18-wheeler, my peripheral vision caught a sudden movement. This big truck jolted towards the right shoulder.

I saw the truck was swerving to avoid hitting a person dressed all in white, with a white face, whose arms were folded across the chest and whose eyes were closed as they walked across the highway. Immediately, I swerved to the left and barely missed hitting this ghostly looking person myself.

I can still remember seeing those creepy closed eyes. I have no idea what this person was doing, but it nearly cost them their life.

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36. The old tire trick

I was 23. My newly married husband and I decided driving a truck together would be a fun adventure after college rather than jumping into the 9-5.

I was down in Arizona, on a long stretch of nothing at about 4am when a guy pulled up next to me waving his CB. (I never left mine on, listening to those guys blab was irritating.)

So I turned on my CB and he told me I had a blown tire. I thanked him, figuring I would stop at the next truck stop.

He kept harassing me to pull over and check my tire for a good 40 miles.

I finally got to a next town and pilot truck stop, got out and checked my truck. No blown tires anywhere.

No clue what that guy would’ve done to me if I had pulled over alone in the middle of nowhere – but I’m so glad I trusted my gut and didn’t stop.

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35. Are you sure this wasn't a video game?

One early morning (about 6am) I was driving with a friend on the highway in the twist and turns of a mountain valley. We were just having casual chat in the car, nobody was on the highway at that time of day and even less on this part of the highway.

I took a quick peek in the rear view mirror and saw a car coming not fast, but FAAAAAST. I tell my friend to watch out for the incoming car because I thought they were coming way too fast and wasn't changing lane to pass us over.

At the very last moment, my friend kind of swerved a little toward the right of the lane and the car behind us hard swerved toward the ditch. The car disappeared in the deep ditch and reappeared, jumping about 4-5ft in the air toward the highway, at about 100km/h with the momentum and back on the highway it was. Like it was nothing, the driver speed up and we lose him ahead of us, as he was going about 140km/h after the near-death accident.

We were absolutely shocked and couldn't saw a word for like 2-3 minutes. We assumed the driver feel asleep and at the last second saw he was gonna ram us and swerved toward the ditch. Shock probably made him speed up after the impact.

It was crazy surreal because there was nobody else for miles around even after that.

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34. [Insert Arnold quote here]

Somebody had set up a cardboard standee in the middle of a middle of nowhere road. I thought I almost hit somebody standing in the pitch black. It took me a few minutes to regain composure and realize it was a standee of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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33. Yeah, that's a pretty spooky prank

A group of teenagers all wore the same exact outfit and masks and stood a few miles apart on a long stretch of road so when I drove by it looked like I was passing the same guy standing on the side of the road. Very clever, but very creepy.

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32. Leave Bambi alone!

I was driving through the backwoods in northern Georgia heading home. Moon is out, but this country road had no streetlights, so basically my headlights are it. I can see silhouettes of things on the side of the road ahead of me.

This MASSIVE shape comes out from behind a tree and begins squirming along the side of the road up ahead. I slow down and ponder if I wanna go forward anymore because, while I had no idea what it is, I do know it's large. Looks about as tall as my car, and just as long, and I thought I saw spikes on its back. And it's moving weird.

I decide "screw it' and begin slowly going forward. I'm in a car, it can handle anything the state of GA can throw at it.

Get closer to the thing and notice it's undulating funny. Turn ever so slightly to hit it with my headlights.

It was a deer trying to hump another deer and I guess not quite getting in there. I didn't stop laughing until I got home because I was sure for a moment I was gonna be attacked by some ancient, unspeakable demon.

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31. Missing your cue

I saw a van try to exit the highway about 50 yards past their exit once in MO. They tried to cut across a grass divide at 70mph, took out a massive exit sign swerved back onto the highway, the van was sideways at one point and I don't know how it didn't roll.

About a mile down the highway, their van starts smoking (guessing radiator issues) and they still passed another two exits before getting off the highway.

I'm guessing they missed their destination along with all the people who didn't realize their exit sign was no longer there.

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30. Alabama after midnight

Well, it started when my friend destroyed his Jeep driving through a ditch. We were off-roading with a few guys and this dude did some stupid stunts. Well, he had to get his Jeep towed and the other guy we were with decided he would stay behind with him and let one of us take his Jeep home.

We're on our way back in his Jeep at around 2 in the morning. We're doing around 50 or 60mph. Suddenly the car starts shaking violently and after about 15 minutes of trial and error we figure out that the only way to prevent that is to constantly change speeds. We would alternate going between 15 and 55mph.

While we're in this 15 minute trial and error period, a few terrifying things happen. We're in the middle of Alabama at 2am. We give the owner a call and ask what might be wrong with the car. He said it's a normal occurrence after off-roading and he's sorry he didn't tell us. Okay, whatever.

About 5 minutes after the call a huge pack of wild dogs come running straight up to the side of the Jeep. There were about 20 dogs all barking and jumping at us. We sped up and drove away immediately.

We eventually hit an area with some houses and a church. I look to my right and behind the church is a giant burning cross. I turned everyone's attention towards it and told them to drive away right freaking now. I was terrified.

We drove the rest of the way home without incident. Needless to say, I probably won't be going back to Alabama -- at least not in the middle of the night.

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29. The rare snow demon

My dad has several stories from hauling logs in Idaho and driving trucks through Utah and Nevada. My favorite is from actually just in his pickup going through Utah. He said there was a light keeping pace with him out in the desert on a moonless night. It kept pace for a minute before it disappeared and his truck turned off. He stopped and turned it on and pulled off at the next diner. The folks in the diner called it a common occurrence.

The creepiest is when he was hauling logs in Idaho and was coming down from near Coeur d’alene area during a snowy winter night. He was putting on chains before heading down steep grade and said all of the hair stood up on his body. It felt like there was something watching him. Halfway down the switchbacks he saw a large figure standing on a 20 foot tall embankment.

As he got closer it jumped down and the shoulders were as tall as the cab. In a single bound it leaped down and then leaped over to the other side of the embankment. At the time he thought it was a Sasquatch, now he says it was probably a “demon” trying to make him crash. He didn’t stop to remove the chains until he was well away from the mountain.

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28. Nature: you're scary

I was right on the outskirts of a small rural town, late at night, when something swooped out of the trees and hit the front of my car with a pretty decent thump. I only saw a flash of the shape but I knew it was an owl. That kinda bummed me out and I did a u-turn to try and find it in the grass at the side of the road with my headlights.

Even though I was sure where it had gone after hitting my car, I couldn't find it, so after a couple of minutes of searching I turned back to see a palm sized frog in the middle of the road, about twenty feet in front of my headlights. Okay, I thought, I killed an owl but I can save this frog from getting squished, at least.

As I started towards the frog, the same bloody owl swooped out of the trees again, scooped up the frog and flew off into the dark, leaving me blinking by the side of the road. It was like Harry Potter narrated by Dave Attenborough.

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27. The dark figure and the phone booth

I was driving along this road that stretches out over about 100km. It's was almost 1am, and I was at the end of the road that is very desolate. Neighbors were kilometers apart from each other. It's a familiar route for me, I drive on it once every few months just to go anywhere.

Because of how isolated it is, there's no street lights so you have to rely on your car headlights. On this particular night I was feeling a little strange because the route didn't seem familiar, which is impossible because it's just one long road with the occasional turning roads. But I kept driving along towards the place where I turn around.

I came to this certain point in the road where there was one lone house, their car was parked in the driveway and I could see that there was somebody in the passenger seat. I thought it was kind of weird because it was so late/early. As I got closer to them they turned the car on, and flashed their high beam lights at me. I didn't pay much attention to this but then I drove past them and looked into my rear view mirror to see what they were up to. They pulled out of their driveway onto the road going the same direction I was.

I was a little nervous at this point because it still looked unfamiliar to me. About five minuets up the road, I looked into my rear-view mirror and the car that pulled out behind me was gone. I looked to my left and noticed an abandoned convenience store on the side of the road. This was something I remember driving passed whenever I would drive up here and I remember that directly in front of the store, a couple of feet away there's a phone booth.

Both the store and the phone booth were run down, and covered in graffiti. Neither had been used in a very long time. As I got closer I saw that there was a dark figure behind the glass of the phone booth. They were looking right at me, I could see their eyes in my headlights. I got a little closer and they stepped out of the phone booth and started walking towards the road that I was on. I started to speed up and then this really bright light came on behind me, and this person just took off towards the back of the store.

I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw the car that had flashed at me earlier. It was about 100 meters behind me. It followed me for another kilometer or so until we reached a turn off road where it did a U-turn and went back the other way.

To get home I had to go back the way I came. I drove past the phone booth and there was nothing there, and then I reached the house where the car pulled out and it was back in its driveway. Driver still in the front seat.

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26. It’s A Trap

I was driving cross country once. Coming into Louisiana, it started getting spooky. There were lots of cars on the side of the road near a swamp. I kinda felt the swamp calling to me; I just wanted to pull over for some reason. Going about 60, I crossed over a short bridge and there was a golden retriever puppy in a dog bed, looking clean and not scared, right on the side of the bridge.

It really freaked me out. I’m a dog lover but I’m not stopping there for anything. I feel like it was some kind of trap.

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25. Red fog

One night as I was driving back home from work, it was about 1 in the morning. There was a semi in front of me. The day was clear but all of the sudden a fog rolled in, which was completely normal for the area, but something seemed off about it. As I'm passing through the fog, instead of water droplets, blood droplets were coming on to my car. I had no idea what happened. Then fur and guts started raining on to my car. Apparently the semi in front of me hit a deer and I got caught in the aftermath of it. I drove home with bits and pieces of deer all over my car.

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24. Working at a castle is the most British thing ever

I live in a rural part of the UK. I was temping just after Uni at a remote castle in the middle of freaking nowhere. It was around 2am driving home across a moor and I go over a hill and I come across a heard of ponies just chilling in the road, almost had a heart attack. Successfully emergency stopped.

Another time I was driving home again at night, its peeing down with rain so driving slow on another rural road. The road ahead seems to be...moving? I slow down to a stop and realize my route ahead is covered with...frogs?! Seriously!

So with my head beams on I stop, get out and thought the best things to do was to chuck all these frogs over the hedge. Someone came in the other direction and stopped and watched me hurtle several hundred frogs over a hedge... so on this occasion I probably scared them.

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23. You probably saved her life

Was driving to work on a Saturday morning down the interstate. I was in the middle lane and I glanced in my side mirror and noticed a car catching me quickly. I looked over as it passed me and in the back of this coupe was a lady banging on the window screaming for help.

I sped up to them and she noticed me and started screaming again. I got behind them and followed them and could see him reaching back and hitting her. I called 911 and as I dialed he sped off.

As I was talking to dispatch I caught up and he noticed me and realized I was following him. He moved over in front of me and came to a complete stop. At that point I didn't know if he had a gun or what so I went around him and exited. Once he went past the overpass, I got back on and followed him but he eventually lost me as I couldn't keep up.

Fortunately I was on with 911 the entire time and they had cops ready to pull him over. Eventually they got him to pull over and when I passed them he was handcuffed on the ground and she was sitting there.

Come to find out it was his ex and he had abducted her and was taking her who knows where. I followed them for around 30 miles weaving in and out of traffic and going 100 mph at times to keep up. Definitely creepy thinking of what he was maybe preparing to do to her.

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22. Nana's diner

My uncle was a long haul trucker. The night his father passed away he was travelling from Ontario to Florida, he got the call from my mother and pulled into the next truck stop to process the news. There was a bar beside the stop and the name of the bar was my grandfather’s first and last name. He even took a picture and sent it to us. It was surreal.

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21. An ill omen

I was crossing the Navajo Nation on my way to Colorado in the 90’s. It was around 1 am and I was really tired, so I pulled over between Gallup and Ship Rock for a nap. Had a nightmare of evil-looking faces coming at me out of the pitch black, screaming. I woke up started the engine, and when I turned on my headlights there was a coyote and a jack rabbit sitting about 10 feet apart just on the edge of the light. I’ve never had a nightmare like that before or since. I have traveled that route a few times but never stopped after dark again.

I dated a Navajo girl, and when I told her that story she was seriously bothered by it. She told me never to mention the coyote again. She said I was not wanted there and if I hadn’t woken up when I did something bad would have happened.

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20. The friendly biker gang

15-year driver here. Here’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

Coming into Albuquerque, NM at night from the west is amazing. You’re driving through dark desert, then you come over the top edge of a hill and the entire city is laid out below you. There is a long stretch of downhill to get to the city, like miles.

So I come over the hill, cruising down at like at 2am, when motorcycles start passing me. Not just a few — we’re talking dozens and dozens of them. They are all lit up with neon ground effects. Guys are standing on the seats, while the girls have their tops off and are flashing me. They are doing wheelies and swerving back and forth around my semi.

There must have been over 100 of them. After this goes on for about 10 minutes, they all take off, probably doing 150 mph. The entire thing was completely surreal and I’ll never forget it.

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19. Road dogs

I was once driving along I15 in Idaho. There was a stray dog walking down the road. He stopped and sat and stared right at me as I approached. I got this feeling to pull over, so I did. He jumped right up into the cab and we rode out. I pulled in the nearest truck stop and he got out and wandered off.

Sometimes I wonder if it was a ghost pup or if some trucker forgot his dog and the dog knew the best way to find him, or perhaps the dog was simply hitchhiking.

Feeling like I should pull over for a dog was definitely the weirdest I’ve ever felt. He did have a cute little bandana. The whole thing made me feel like I should get a trucker dog to keep me company on the road. But it’s a rough lifestyle I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

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18. Voices from nowhere

I stop at an offramp to stretch out and take a breather. A little girl from some direction I couldn’t figure out giggles and says, “Hi, mister!” My initial reaction was, “What on earth is a little kid doing out here at this time?” So I talk back and say hello. She then responds with, “My mommy says you’ll be ok, don’t worry!”

Now utterly confused, I ask her what she means. No response. Then suddenly, I feel like somebody is standing next to me, but it doesn’t feel negative or bad. Just feels like somebody is right there next to me. Since it doesn’t have a negative vibe to it, I just finish my break and leave.

Later on down the road, I realize that I forgot to fuel up at my last stop when the warning light came on. I scramble to look at my GPS and find the nearest truck stop. I find one and set the course. As I roll up to the truck stop, my truck starts sputtering and I barely make it to the fuel line before the truck starts dying.

I ran out of fuel right as I got on the fuel line. It wasn’t until I was fueling up that it occurred to me what actually happened at my last stop.

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17. Follow Your Instincts

Way back in the day, I was on a trip to Marquette, MI in a 1 ton truck hauling a 20 foot enclosed trailer. It was about 2 or 3 pm in the afternoon. My route had a few pickups from the lower half of the state that needed to go north. I was heading towards Grayling when I noticed the light outside was, for any lack of a better word, odd. It gave me one of those gut feelings that tells you something is wrong. I pulled off at the next service station to investigate further.

Found that the sky that had been overcast all day had a almost perfectly round, giant hole/tunnel in it. That giant hole looked like it went up for 15,000 feet to clear blue skies. The odd light was from the green/orange light, and dark storm clouds that made the outer ring of the hole. Looked like other weather was coming in but the forecast had called for only regular rain earlier.

I don’t ignore gut feelings so I quickly checked into a dive motel and parked my truck against the building to shield it from the current wind direction. About a 15 minutes later a tornado blew through just a bit north. Later found out from CB traffic that several trucks were blown off the road. I did some figuring and would have likely been in its path when the weather went through. As I made my way north the next day and it was weird seeing the downed trees from where it blew through.

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16. "It was probably a deer"

I do recall one night in particular. Basically, I was driving through Montana headed east. My company had miscalculated my mileage, so I requested an emergency fuel-up. I got a response with the nearest gas station that I could get approved at. It wasn’t exactly close.

So I turn off the main highway and head toward my stop. It’s pitch black, theres no moon, no city light, and I haven’t seen any headlights for about an hour. I’m cruising down the highway and I see something in the middle of the road at the furthest extent of my headlights. I slow down, naturally, as I approach it. When I come to pass it, I get one good glance and slam on my breaks as I pass right in the middle of the highway.

All I could think was… What in the world did I just see?! I back up looking in my mirror until I see its red silhouette in my brake lights. Pull my breaks, put on my jacket and grab my flashlight and hop out. I walk to the back of my trailer and put my light on it, and there it was. A headless, skinless, mangled body. I froze and my jaw dropped. I didn’t know what I was looking at. All I could do was stand there, in the middle of the highway, in the cold, stagnant air.

There was no fur, there was no clothing. I debated calling the police, as the ribcage looked big enough for someone my size, but I looked at my phone and had zero cell service. The nearest town was about 50 miles out. When I put my phone away, I flashed my light around and standing at the end of the road were a handful of coyotes staring at me. Then they started coming through the fence and trotting my direction.

I figured this is the part where I get back in the truck, so I did, and continued on my way. To this day, I still do not know if it was human or not. I’ve convinced myself that it was more than likely a deer. But I’ve never seen a deer that looked like that before or since.

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15. A woman in white

I work nights and one day I forgot my lunch at home. I didn't have money to spend so I decided to go home on my lunch hour and eat my sandwich on the way back. I was in a hurry so I took the back roads. At about half way there as I was speeding and noticed a woman in a white night dress without shoes standing in the road in the other lane.

I slowed down as I passed her thinking she was probably out of it or something and didn't want her to jump out in front of me or anything like that. It wasn't till later as I was on my way back that I started to think how odd it was. Why would someone be in the middle of the road in their bare feet at 2:30am? But I just reassure myself that the woman was probably just hammered.

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14. Big kitty

I am a log truck driver in the Pacific Northwest. We go up into the woods on logging roads and haul logs back from the loggers to sawmills. We start work very early in the morning (2-5 a.m.), so it’s night time obviously.

One of my co-workers pulled away from the job and started down the logging road. After a couple miles -- after the load had settled a bit -- he decided to pull over and throw his remaining wrappers around the load. As he was tying his load down, he looked back and saw a mountain lion watching him from ten feet off of the end of his trailer. He slowly backed up to his driver door and got in. By the time he looked in his mirror the lion had disappeared.

We see lions and bears fairly often out there, but to be that close and out of the truck… We face different obstacles up in the woods than just highway drivers.

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13. The ghost cop

On the highway at about 3 AM, in the middle of nowhere between Roanoke and DC, absolutely nobody around. I’m cruising along in the left lane simply because nobody else is around. No headlights for the past hour, no tail lights either. No road lamps either. It’s dark, its mildly damp, its foggy. I have the music up, I’m feeling good, all is fine.

And then I just happen to look to the left and there is a dog barking at me. A German Shepard, in a car passenger seat, somewhat blue-glow from the instruments inside the car, and its got its face to its window and its barking its head off at me. I get a good hard look at it, too, because at first my brain is not registering ‘cop car, dummy!’

I’m doing 90+ in a 75, I promptly have the ‘oh crap!’ moment when the dog, the instruments, the white crown vic/light bar all click in my brain after a second hard look. I put my foot on the brakes and start slowing down hard but safe, to pull over. I even put my blinker on to start shifting lanes over to the right to pull over because-

WAIT. There is no shoulder on the left side of this road!

I look back to my left (where there is still no shoulder/room for another car!), and it’s just gone. No trace. I slammed my brakes and stopped in the middle of the highway, flipped on all my light bars and even looked around with my handheld spot. There was NOTHING. No tail lights, no headlights, no engine sounds, nothing. There are no other tire marks in the damp but mine, and I can see for a nice long distance both ways, too. Nothing.

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12. On their way to Area 51

I was driving near Las Vegas at around 3am. I had been following a few black SUVs along the highway for a good hour or so. They had Nevada plates that were single digit numbers in order: 1,2,3. Suddenly they all pulled off the highway down a dirt path. There was no mile marker or cactus that would indicate a path there. It was just dirt. After pulling off the road they all turned their lights off. I didn’t stick around. It was creepy.

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11. Everything in Australia wants to kill you

This is Australia. I drove about three hours at night from my father's rural property back into town. Dark all the way. I made no stops, it was an uneventful trip.

Until I began to reach civilization at last, and in the faint illumination of motorway lights I saw a large, crumpled shape on the dashboard directly in front of me. It quickly resolved itself to be a huntsman spider sitting on the dash with front legs raised and looking STRAIGHT AT ME.

I hadn't opened the door in three hours. This thing had been in there with me for three hours.

I was able to pull over soon at a service station and pump the car full of insecticide. I never found the body.

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10. The call of the wild

I was in rural Maine looking for a lumber mill just before sunset. It took hours to get out there because Maine is riddled with these narrow windy roads that try and get as close as possible to every building in every village from US 1 to Canada.

So I pull in just as the last guy is leaving, I ask him were to park and say I’ll see him in the morning. I park my truck in this fairly large gravel parking lot with thick forest on all sides. There are no visible artificial lights except for my truck and my flashlight. After I get parked I go and sit out in a lawn chair and just enjoy the warm night air and look at the absolutely beautiful night sky. It was a rare treat to enjoy basically no light pollution.

As I’m looking at the stars, I suddenly heard what sounded like fifty coyotes, sixty feet away, start howling like mad. It is at this point I run right back into the truck and don’t open the doors until sunrise.

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9. This tailgater doesn't want to party

I had something creepy happen to me a few months ago. I was driving home after seeing a play with a friend of mine, so it was probably around 11:30 PM-12: 00 AM. Also, I live in rural America, so there weren't any street lamps or houses for the majority of the drive.

I was driving over this bridge and saw a car sitting on the side of the road, turned on. I wasn't really concerned about it because it's a common spot for cars to pull off, even if it was kind of late.

As I passed the car, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that they had pulled out behind me. Again, I didn't really think anything of it... until they began to tailgate me hard. While that behavior isn't unheard of, it tends to be rare since the road is curvy and a hotspot for deer...

I kept driving for a bit with this car right up on me which caused me to feel frustrated, confused, and strangely paranoid. Then, the car's headlights went out abruptly while I was nearing the end of a stretch of road surrounded completely by forest. This made me freak out because it was still super close behind me.

Then, the car sped up and went around me, but almost immediately slowed down to a standstill in front of me. At this point I was so afraid, so I sped up, went around the car, and drove way too fast to get home and then sprinted inside and locked the door.

I didn't notice the car around my house, but I still feel worried about the entire ordeal and wish I knew why someone would drive like that.

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8. It always seems real when it's happening

Former driver here. You’d see all kinds of crazy stuff at night on the road. I’ve always been a night owl so I can’t chalk it up to exhaustion, but I’m sure that none of it was what it seemed.

A giant, shaggy black dog running along and eventually across the road.

A man with yellow eyes and a long black duster standing in the road smiling.

More than one light in the sky moving and changing directions at speeds that make my head spin to think about.

Phantom deer. Probably real deer but it sure didn’t seem like it at the time.

Injured people walking on the side of the road. Saw a few, only one ever turned out to be real. Glad I kept stopping to check.

Lights in the trees like fairies.

And my personal favorite: an enormous black creature with extremely long appendages and a hunched torso that tried to swipe at vehicles.

I’ve read a lot about most of these phenomena and understand their explanations but darned if they didn’t seem completely real and scary when I witnessed them. Some of them so much so that it seemed like a good idea to stop instead of risking it. I don’t believe in ghosts and monsters but some of those gave me pause.

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7. Escaped mental patient

I live a couple of blocks away from the only forensic psychiatric hospital in the state. I believe there is an unmarked assisted living facility on my street too, as frequently people with different quirks walk up and down the footpath. There was an uproar a year ago when a patient who had been committed for a violent assault escaped, but otherwise it's a peaceful and nice street.

Was pulling into my apartment one rainy night when I noticed a man across the road. Maybe in his thirties. It was pouring down, but he just stood there drenched in a thin shirt and shorts, staring directly at me. I hurried into my apartment, and after time passed, peeked out the curtain. He was still there, standing in the rain. And although there are several apartments in my complex and he couldn't have seen which one I entered, or spot me through the small crack in the curtain, I swear he was looking straight at my apartment, at me.

Then he began a series of...movements. I don't know how to explain it. He walked sideways, but he'd raise his knee very high, then slowly slap it down onto the pavement. Then he'd raise his other knee very high, and do the same thing again. He looked like a marionette puppet, or like he was moving underwater. It didn't look like footdrop, motor disorder, intoxication, or anything I've seen before. His pale, wet face remained fixated on my apartment window the entire time.

He moved so slowly that it must have been five minutes before he'd moved past the span of a few houses. Then I realized he was actually slowly starting to move forward. Onto the road. Toward my window.

I went to grab my phone, and when I returned to the window he was...gone. I imagined him pounding on my door, or climbing my balcony, but nothing happened. Watched for another five minutes, and saw a squad car very slowly roll down my street. That happens so rarely in my quiet suburb that I suspect they were looking for him.

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6. The creepiest birthday

I used to deliver pizza, and often had deliveries right at midnight when we closed. One time, late at night, I'm driving back to the store through a small neighborhood. Up ahead I see something. It's perfectly spherical bright/shiny... Thing, just hovering about 6 feet off the ground. Not moving at all.

I pull up very slowly. Still doesn't move. Still can't comprehend what I'm looking at. Just this shiny hovering orb in the road at midnight.

At this point my curiosity has overridden my fear. I'm the guy in the horror movie who dies first because I just gotta know. Either I die or I get a cool story, right?

So I hop out of the car, and slowly walk up to it. I'm right in front of it and still can't understand what I'm seeing.

So I reach out and touch it.

It's a balloon.

One of those foil birthday balloons with the streetlights shining on it making it look weird out of context in the middle of the night on an empty road.

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5. The howling trailers of Flagstaff

The creepiest thing I remember from my years as a truck driver, other than the empty rest areas in the middle of nowhere, was the howling trailers of Flagstaff.

I get to my pickup point at midnight. The guard tells me to open my trailer doors and leave them open after I drop my empty trailer. He gives me directions to the drop area, and when I get there I hear the most chilling howl.

It sounds like a giant blowing over a hundred massive bottles. The cold wind blows right through me as the howling gets louder. I find an open spot and back in my trailer. I start cranking down my landing gear and it’s louder than ever. I’m feeling the vibration through my body.

I get the landing gear down, I pull my fifth wheel release, and I’m gone to pick up my loaded trailer.

I get to the area where they keep the loaded trailers and I find my load. The wind picks up again and the howl is almost deafening! I feel the vibration even stronger as the goosebumps rise on my body. I hook up the air lines and electrical, do a pre-trip inspection on the trailer, and go to the back to close the door.

When I get to the back doors, the wind picks up again. The howling is coming from the wind blowing across all the open doors of all the trailers. Still creepy as death. I slam the doors shut and seal it at the guard shack.

I tell the guard and he replies that they’ve had dozens of people quit over the howling trailers. He told me they get too creeped out by it ’cause it’s in the middle of the woods.

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4. That's why you don't pick a fight with a monkey

I was waiting out front of a truck stop back in the mid 80’s. Sitting on a park bench with a guy that had a big Rottweiler kinda dog on a leash with him. I tried to make small talk but he wasn’t a nice guy. So we sat in silence for a few minutes until the most unexpected thing I have ever seen, happened right before my very eyes.

While we were sitting there a big 18 wheeler pulls in without a trailer, so he parks right up front like a normal car would. Inside the cab of the truck, with the driver is a little monkey. The dance for the organ grinder kind. I think they are called Rhesus monkeys perhaps. Well the dog spots this little monkey and proceeds to go crazy over it. Lunging at the end of his leash and barking at the top of his lungs. Generally making a real spectacle of himself to say the least.

The driver is obviously upset, but not nearly as much as the monkey is. Actually upset may be the wrong adjective to use for the monkey though. In retrospect I think eagerly aggressive may be a more appropriate description for his disposition. He was pacing the dashboard back and forth. Never taking his eyes off of this very aggravating dog.

The driver opens his little triangle window that they don’t make on cars anymore. The ones made for smokers back in the day. He yells out to this guy to call his dog off because it is upsetting his monkey. The guy laughs and says no way (I told you he was mean didn’t I?). Says that his dog ain’t bothering nobody. The dog hasn’t shut up since he laid eyes on the monkey. I promise you he is bothering everybody for several blocks around.

Now here’s where things start to get interesting. The driver says that if he doesn’t call his dog off he’s gonna let his monkey loose on that dog. The guy I’m with laughs and says that his dog would eat that monkey alive. Upon hearing this the driver leans over and reaches into his glove box I guess. Pulls out one of those tiny baseball bats like you used to get at Astroworld or carnivals, and places it in the monkey's hand.

The monkey obviously knows what’s about to go down because he is now trying to squeeze out of that little triangular window I mentioned earlier. This monkey has death in his eyes if I have ever seen it. Driver hollers, “Last chance to save your dog, man.” In response, this guy lets his dog off of the leash.

Now we have a situation that has escalated to the point where we have a dog jumping up at the window and a monkey screaming right back at him. Well, the driver finally rolls down the regular window and out leaps all kinds of miniature primate rage. The dog never knew what hit him. Quick as a flash this monkey is riding on the back of this dog’s neck. His two back feet all wrapped up in his neck fur with one hand hanging onto an ear. The other hand as you may have guessed by now is steadily and mercilessly raining down blows about this dog’s head and face. I mean hard blows. You can hear them whap whap whap.

Well it only took a moment for the dog to realize he was in way over his head. He bolts, yelping as he runs away at full speed. I mean this dog is running so hard he’s throwing up tufts of grass and dirt as soon as he leaves pavement. The monkey still riding him and beating on him the whole time. The dog owner acts like he wants to fight now but several people including myself stepped in to stop that nonsense. In a couple of minutes or so the little monkey comes loping back with his little bat still in hand, and leaps up into the still open window of the truck to await his master who has gone on into the store.

That wanker ran off to find his dog (which thankfully he did). The dog was fine, just ashamed.

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3. I thought they were just in cartoons

For some reason I was driving through middle of nowhere west Texas/New Mexico late at night. I'd just moved to that region of the country. I'm driving along while my husband is asleep in the passenger seat when this giant THING comes crawling out into the road in front of me and scares the crap out of me. I scream "WHAT IS THAT THING??" a split second before I slammed into it. My husband gives me this perplexed look and is like "haven't you ever seen a tumbleweed before?"

No Brian, I have NOT seen a tumbleweed before.

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2. Men in the mist

I was driving through the back roads of Arkansas around 3am. Suddenly I hit a dense fog bank. It was so thick that I knew I should have pulled off the road because I could barely see in front of me, but sometimes pulling over can be just as dangerous. So I slow to about 20mph and put my hazards on.

I see no other cars coming from either directions. After about 15 minutes, I start seeing human-shaped shadows illuminated by my headlights, darting around the sides of the road and across it.

It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I saw maybe five or six of them. Never got a good look; all I saw were shadows darting back and forth, but they we definitely humanoid. Needless to say I was freaked out and wanted to get away. I sped up a bit and after about 5 minutes I came out of the fog bank. It ended just as suddenly as it began.

I sped away at my allotted 65mph and didn’t stop until the sun came up.

Photo by Eugene Triguba on Unsplash

1. To bee or not to be

I was headed west on I-76 here in Denver, just cruising along at about 70mph. Out of nowhere, I saw a massive, almost solid cloud of what looked to be dirt coming toward me. I’d say it was at least 20 feet wide and 10 feet high. I scanned ahead of me but couldn’t see any vehicle that could have caused it.

With nowhere to go, I slowed down and drove into the cloud, hoping there wasn’t anything big enough in there to come through the windshield or damage my truck. The instant it hit, I knew it wasn’t dust. I was suddenly going 70 with zero visibility.

I immediately hit the washers because I couldn’t see a thing through all of the carnage. My windshield was painted with guts. Turns out it was bees — freaking huge bees that sounded like rocks when they hit me. I can’t even imagine seeing that swarm if I was walking. They would kill anything in their path.

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