23 Creepy Experiences People Have Had In The Woods

This happened to some friends of mine in Sydney, Australia. When we wanted to go underage drinking we would buy a case of beer or bottle of spirits and hike about 4kms into the bush to the middle of no where to drink without worrying about getting into trouble. Would sleep in a sleeping bag under the stars in summer and be fine.

So one afternoon my friends, without me this time, headed off with beer to the usual camp spot we'd use. Being young and stupid no one checked the weather forecast otherwise they'd have know heavy rain was on the way.

In the middle of the night 5 drunk teenagers left the camp site to shelter in caves near by. The caves sit high up overlooking a large fork in the Hawksberry River. Soaked from the rain and cold, they started to dig a fire pit. Unfortunately they dug up human remains, were too drunk to return home so spent a miserable night in the rain waiting for dawn. Didn't dare stay anywhere near the caves.

The police investigated and discovered the remains were an very old aboriginal burial site and were relocated to avoid being accidently disturbed again.

Znarl , Getty Images Report

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My family used to go camping with a few groups of friends when I was a kid. I remember one Christmas when I was about 5 we were camping out in the bush. There were 9 kids in total at our campsite. We were allowed to wander through the bush. The parents would give us a walkie talkie to tell us when to come back to camp (we never wandered far).
Anyway, out of nowhere an unfamiliar voice came over our walkie talkie. It was a man's voice. He said he was Santa and that he was trying to find us to give us our presents and asked us to look for him. We all ran back to our campsite all excited that Santa had talked us.
The walkie talkie was taken off us and we weren't allowed to go anywhere for the rest of the trip. We were pretty devestated at the time. But I understand the seriousness and creepiness of it now looking back as an adult.

User , jcomp Report

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I thought I heard a bear so I go to chase it off. I grab my hatchet and run towards it screaming "Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!" Then suddenly I'm surrounded with 2 large animals 1 between me and the camp and one still deeper into the woods. Then I hear the most haunting sound I've ever heard. It was a banshee sound that sounded human but not quite and I heard it traveling very fast in the same direction as one of the large animals. I didn't sleep well that night. I checked for prints in the morning and saw some deer tracks but no idea what made that sound. Then 9 years later I was nearby and shouted "Aiaiaiaiaiai" to scare away the bears before going to bed. Then I heard the sound again. I'm alone, armed to the teeth against anything with claws but this sounds like some humanoid cryptid. Then I'm hearing it surround me, whatever it is it's circling me and it's close. Suddenly I realize the sound is slightly above me. It was a mocking bird.

anon , Brian Forsyth Report

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Was somewhere in the middle of the White Mountains in the summer when I walked into what looked like a scene from a horror movie.


A person with zero hiking, camping, or other experience had gotten themselves in trouble - big trouble. It was around 7am when I found the campsite. First thing that hit me was the eerie stillness, until I noticed the shredded tent under a tree, and the desperate looking human figure covered in blood, whimpering quietly. I put my bag down, grabbed my kit and went over to the person - they looked like they had just lost a knife fight with a 4 armed man. Deep slashes from one shoulder to hip, single punctures up and down his back, and hands and forearms full of what looked to be defensive cuts. I patched him up the best I could, gave him water, checked my map and high tailed it to the closest road (this was before cell phones were super prevalent and barely worked in the mountains). Thankfully, the road was very close by - less than 2 miles, and I was able to flag someone down. They took off and I waited for assistance to arrive. It took about an hour until rescue arrived, and I led them to the still unidentified individual (he was not very conversive when I helped him out) - I was sure he wouldn't be alive anymore, but was wrong. I assisted rescue bringing him out, and took them up on their offer to head into town and get cleaned up. After cleaning up and getting myself situated at their station, I went on my way, leaving them my number to call to let me know what was up with the person we helped out.


I got home 3 days later, and there was a message on my machine. The story was that the guy I found decided to go camping one day and heard that he had to keep food hung from a tree to keep bears away. Well, he did that, but put it almost directly over his tent, and not high enough. The night before I happened upon the site, a bear had used the tent, and it's occupant, in attempt to climb the tree to get to the food. The guy had woken up to four black bear paws sinking into his body, shifting to reach up. Dude survived, and swore to the hospital staff that he was "moving to the city and never going into the woods again.".

anon , anvesh baru Report

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The scariest situation is when I thought I was having a heart attack. Was hours away from help, and I had to walk there. Was just a panic attack.

flyingsaucerinvasion , Toby Hall Report

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Here late, but the scariest thing I have had happen so far was a Moose came crashing through my campsite in the middle of the night. It sounded like a freight train crashing through trees. Woke me up in the middle of the night. Found out in the morning it had ran right by my tent. They don't have great eyesight and I was about 2 feet from being trampled by 1,000lbs of moose.

Minyaden , Camille Quigley Report

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Backpacking with 15 year old daughter. 6 miles in we had climbed over a plateau and down into a canyon. We were filling up water bottles when she slipped on a wet rock and obliterated her ankle. No cell phone signal, no means to contact the outside world. As I watched her ankle swell, all I could think about was how stupid I was to get my kid into this situation. I quickly gained my wits, stopped panicking, made camp, and distributed anti-inflamatories. The next morning I made a makeshift splint and decided we would be better off following the creek out because climbing out of the canyon did not seem like a feasible option. It was in the upper 30s and we had to cross waist deep water multiple times. Took a whole day to get out but we made it, daughter was a trooper every step of the way. It turned out to be more of a bonding and learning experience than I ever could have imagined and now we have a great story. Ankle was badly sprained but she recovered after about 6 or 7 weeks.

captain_crowfood , User Report

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10 years ago when I was a skinny little 17 year old I was hiking the rural side of a levee with a friend who was even scrawnier than I was. It was a long, long, walk Into the woods and for about an hour or more we hadn't seen anyone else. Just trees and foliage. We finally stumbled upon a huge *nest* looking area. It was so random and out of place so we investigated. There was paper and cloth everywhere, torn magazine pages, old clothes, cans, everything piled into one huge mess. We assumed maybe people drove their truck out here and dumped their trash, so we just turned to leave but in that very moment we saw a tall rugged man wearing all black staring right at us. He was maybe 6ft3, had shaggy unkept hair, and looked dirty and disturbed. He stood 15 feet away, and he was just staring and silent. My friend didn't say something so I said "Hi. Do you live here....is this your stuff?" And he only nodded yes and then we slowly backed away and left. He just stared at us until we could no longer see him anymore and then we picked up speed to get back to civilization.

anon , Angel Espinoza Report

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Me and a group of 20 others were hiking in a 2 person side to side line through thick woods at around 1am. We managed to find a muddy road which we continued to walk over for miles before going back into the woods.

While walking on the muddy road, I held a conversation with one of my friends that was to the right of me. After a while of talking, I noticed that my group was further ahead of me then before so I picked up the pace. As I got closer, I noticed something odd. The friend I was talking too was already with the rest of my group. I asked him how did he get back so quick and he turned, looked at me and said, “I was wondering where you were, you disappeared for a good 5 minutes.”

Let’s just say I didn’t feel alright after hearing those words. I know for a fact I was speaking to him earlier, and if not him, then someone exactly the same with all the same gear... luckily nothing happened after that, but I was pretty shook for the rest of the hiking night.

This all happened in Poland when I was a teenager part of what I call “survivalist camp”

Tldr:
I went hiking with a group of 20 people, fell behind due to slow pace, thought I was talking to my friend that was next to me but turns out he was with the rest of the group and not with me.

dadbodbart , Nichika Sakurai Report

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I was hiking across Newfoundland, following an old railway that was long ago disassembled and turned into a giant trail, sleeping wherever I found myself at night.

One day I ran into a small cottage town, except everything was abandoned. Trailers falling apart, bus conversions burnt out, small cabins all shuttered up. It was creepy but interesting at the same time. The sun was waning so I decided to set up camp in a mostly empty lot that had an abandoned truck slowly falling into a ravine near it. Cooked up some food and crawled into my tent to sleep.

I wake up sometime in the night and I hear footsteps outside my tent. At first I think its an animal but the steps sound like someone walking, a human. The steps get closer and go around my tent. I slowly and quietly pull out my knife, if he tries to get in my plan is to stab first and ask questions later. Anyone trying to get into my tent at night in the middle of nowhere is looking to do some kind of harm. My heart is racing at this point but I try to just be quiet.

Luckily the steps start moving away from the tent until I can't hear them anymore. I wait a bit to see if they'll come back but I don't hear anything. I slowly get out of my tent, I don't see anything. Without turning on my flashlight I quickly take down everything and stuff it into my bag. After that I just started walking down the trail to get the h**l out of there. I walked until daytime, came across a road and flagged down a truck. That guy was nice and drove me to town where I got a hotel.

The creepy thing, when I think back to it, was that whoever that was likely watched me walk into town from one of the abandoned structures. I'm guessing a squatter. I'd like to think he was just curious but I'm glad I didn't stay and wait to see if he'd be back.

UniverseBear Report

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Woke up after camping in the Rockies to find cat prints the size of softballs encircling my hammock. I never even heard a single noise that night and the prints were no more than fifteen feet away. Luckily, I didn’t have any food that piqued it’s interest.

CukeL18 Report

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I was camping in Northern California, like at the very tippy top of california, deep in the woods at a reservoir. I had to go p**p really bad early in the morning before the sun was up and there were no bathrooms.
So I walked down a trail and found a little spot isolated away from the trail next to a blackberry bush and an outcropping of water from the reservoir. I heard some crashing in the tree line and it just started to become slightly light outside. I peeked over the blackberry bush and not 40 feet from me was a huge bear, around 500 pounds. I tried to sneak away but as I was stepping backwards I kid you not, I stepped on a twig that snapped. This bear and I instantly both turn our heads toward one another and lock eyes. I attempted to make myself look big and make noise. Bear didn’t budge. In fact he started to walked towards me. So many things were racing through my mind, the number one being, there is no way I’m curling up into a ball and allowing this monstrously giant bear mess me up, so I crouched down as low as I could behind the blackberry bush so he couldn’t see me, and started running as fast as I could whilst crouched/squatting down. My thought process was that if he couldn’t see me run, maybe he wouldn’t chase if I was already kind of far away before he actually saw my running over the blackberry bush.

It worked, he pursued around the bush for maybe 20 feet and decided it wasn’t worth it and allowed my escape.

I honestly thought I was going to be breakfast for this bear and that would be the end of me.

Okkin-J-Flow Report

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So not necessarily a "deep woods" camper but when I and my wife first met we did a lot of "off the trail" camping to get away from people. We would always go to the same spot, nothing strange ever happened until one time we woke up to the most beautiful native flute music, it was so peaceful that I wasn't as afraid as I feel I should have been.

We eventually got up and started moving around and the music stopped. We never heard it again and always joked that it was bigfoot serenading his mate.

thedude502 Report

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At first it looked like fly tipping, but as me and my bf got closer, it was an abandoned campsite. There must have been 3 people, and one of them was a child because of the random kids toys left around, and they left suitcases full of leftovers and rubbish. The creepiest thing was the backpacks which were just filled with rocks!! And not just random rocks they found in the woods either, these were rocks from a train line. Someone had snuck on a train line, filled up several bags full of rocks, and dumped them here. Why? I don’t know.
Near the campsite up a tree was a seagull skeleton that had recently been picked apart because the bones were still [darn] and the feathers still attached to the wings. It just added to the eerie nature.

Crafty-Particular998 , WBMUL Report

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I was camping up in Heber, Arizona with my brothers and my dad. I was 15 or so at the time and we were deep in the woods, far from most other camps.

Me and my brothers had our own tent whilst my dad had a separate one not far off. He likes to give us our privacy while we were camping. We would usually run around a bit at night before going to bed, entering our camp to sleep at about 11:00pm.

One night we were playing hide and seek when we heard a branch snap a few yards from us. We assumed it was an Elk or something since they were pretty common in our area. We would typically go to our tent if we saw one in hopes of not agitating it.

So that’s what we did. I called for my youngest brother who was still hiding and he revealed himself to be hiding behind a branch pile not super far from where the noise originated.

We went to the tent and I decided since it was already pretty late that we should just go to sleep. The next morning I went to check the spot for Elk prints since I found them pretty fascinating.

Instead, I found large cat prints. I knew they were cat prints because they had the four toe pads and the large center pad as well as no claw marks. I was honestly kind of excited.

I had always wanted to see a Mountain Lion or a Bobcat in the wild but it never happened. Knowing that I was that close to either one was very thrilling. It then occurred to me that my youngest brother was hiding, separated from us scarily close to the paw prints location.

It occurred to me that if that was a hungry Mountain Lion and it had taken notice of my 6 year old brother hiding alone it could have possibly taken the chance.

We stopped doing hide and seek at night to avoid those types of situations and we actually set up a roll call system to ensure everyone was together at night.

Now I know a Mountain Lion likely wouldn’t have done anything had it seen him but still, the risk felt very real and I worry that had I not heard it I could have lost my brother.

EDIT: I’m glad my most upvoted post is about an animal that was apparently stalking my brother. That’s something I’ll forever have on my mind.

The_Radio_Host Report

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My boys and I were dry camping on a plateau above one of the many canyons in the Snake River Wilderness in late summer. The first night, at about 1am we saw several lights rise into the sky what seemed to be about 10 miles away. We immediately thought it was just drones and thought nothing of it. Then we started seeing flashing amber lights reflecting off of the canyon walls. So, naturally my curiosity compelled me to see what was going on. We got in the truck and started driving down the only road in the area hoping that we could get close enough to see. After about 30 minutes, everything went dark and we never saw any more lights. We never did find out what it was.

On the second night, we had just gotten to sleep when I was woken up by wolves howling. At that point I wasn't scared at all and was kind of fascinated by the sounds. They seemed pretty far off and it was cool to listen to. I drifted back to sleep then some time later was woken up by the sounds of running animals. I bolted upright just in time to see several animals that looked to be wolves (hard to tell by moonlight through a tent screen) running right past our truck. They never stopped. Just ran past us. It is the only time I have ever seen wolves in the wild and it was intimidating to see just how big they really are. But even with all of that excitement, that wasn't the scariest part of the night. About two hours after the wolf event, I had to get up to pee. I didn't even want to get out of the tent but the bladder kind of forced the issue. I worked up the courage to get up. slung my gun around my shoulder, and stepped outside. I was about mid-stream when a thud and the sound of footfalls came from the area just to my right. I spun in a full panic only to realize it was a cow rubbing against a small pine tree about 40 yards away. I have never been so relieved to see a cow in my life.



tl;dr: I saw a couple of UFOs and almost pooped myself because of a cow.

Ace_Ranger Report

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Was out with a friend a few miles from Pikes Peak in Colorado.

We were hiking on this trail and up ahead I see a blue windbreaker in the middle of the trail. We hadn't seen anybody else out walking all day (its pretty remote where we were staying) so it was weird it was placed right in the middle of the path, but hey things happen and people drop things so maybe it fell out of a backpack and nobody noticed.

The windbreaker was just a piece of this entire campsite we ended up coming across that was absolutely torn to shreds. There was a tent, a hammock, a cooler, and a backpack. Various articles of clothing thrown about as well. The tent had broken poles, was shredded, and looked like it was from the early 2000s with the fading that was apparent and the old style of it. Think of a basic 4 person Walmart tent, not a nice fancy lightweight backpacking tent.

The hammock was still hanging. Empty. The cooler was open and empty. A few shirts and shorts were scattered, and the backpack was empty.

We told ourselves it must be some homeless shelter and that was a good enough excuse for us to leave everything how it was and continue back to the cabin we were staying in.

LeProVelo Report

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My partner and I were deep in Mt. Adams wilderness area (Washington State, U.S) and there were no other campers around. We had spent the day fishing and exploring the creek around our camp.

Around 2am, he wakes me up and tells me to be quiet. Our little dog is quietly growling and looking in one direction. About 15 yards north of the tent, I can hear rustling and a woman’s voice speaking quietly to herself (couldn’t discern any words). There is no light, just the voice and the walking noise. It goes quiet and then picks back up on the other side of the tent (which is even deeper woods) then it faded off into the dense forest.

The fact that there was someone alone wandering around talking to themselves in the middle of the night without a light or camp is soo freaky and I still get chills whenever I think about it. The next morning we investigated and didn’t find any tracks, but there was a really haphazardly lit fire (charred remains) in the middle a forest/logging road about a mile up. It was still kind of warm.

I know there is a small town (about 150 people) about 10 miles south from where we were camped.. so maybe it was a drunk teenager? We were almost touching the Yakima Indian reservation also, and the logging roads were still actively used. But still, so bizarre. Sorry for formatting also, I’m on mobile.

Sroseo1 Report

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I camped alone once in my life, though I have been in backcountry multi day treks about 3 dozen times with other hikers. I set up camp in the forest only a couple miles in but I was camping illegally so I went pretty far off the trail. Night was coming and I got a nice cozy fire going as the woods darkened. Around 11 I heard noises- purposeful, stalking noises in the undergrowth. I shone my headlamp out and saw at least 3 pairs of glowing eyes reflecting back. I know very well that coyotes almost never pick a fight with a grown woman. Yet they didn’t budge when I yelled and threw rocks. The circles just bobbed along, watching. Freaked me out. I packed my tent and walked to the road and asked my friend to pick me up (I’d biked). I’ll never do that again. I knew they would not attack, but being alone in the dark gives me such a primal fear of being eaten alive.

anon Report

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Hiking in Maine around Moosehead Lake. I was hiking with my Uncle. I was a Boy Scout and I saw a spot where it appeared that someone had walked off of the trail and into the woods toward a clearing. As a kid I got curious and we walked through the woods for about a hundred yards.

We came to a small clearing where it appeared that a religious ritual had taken place. a small campfire, an altar made of stones and a large circle burned into the brush. After about a minute of exploring, my uncle said that "we shouldn't be here." I agreed and we hightailed it back to the main trail.

Spin_Me Report

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Was hiking solo in the White Mountains, attempting to summit Mt. Adams via the Airline Trail. The Presidentials were totally socked in with fog, wind and some rain. Could not see more than a couple inches in front of me. I doubled back to the Madison Springs hut to review my options, and decided to climb to the top of Madison and go down the back side on the Watson Path to make my way back to my original trailhead. The Watson Path was tricky because a) it's all granite boulders at the top which were b) very slippery due to the weather and c) totally socked in from the fog and d) no one else is on the trail that day. And I start thinking, man, if I break an ankle or take a header on these slick boulders, no one is going to find me for a long time and I start to get the nerves, and I'm carefully picking my way through the fog, barely able to make out the next cairn... When all of a sudden there is a brief break in the fog and I see this giant black thing down the trail in front of me, inkily appearing and disappearing through the fog, and my mind immediately thinks bear.... It's not more than 150 feet from me... And I'm peering through the fog... And I edge closer and yell at the thing... And I'm squinting and trying to make out what is.... Ultimately a big upturned tree stump.

Yes, I had the bejeezus scared out of me by a tree.

That thing really got my adrenaline going. It was probably the best lesson I've had with how stress and adrenaline can really change your perception of your environs. I was absolutely convinced that thing was a bear. As I got closer to it, it was so obviously not a bear. But for those two minutes, I was seriously activated.

Epilogue: as I sat down, laughing and collecting myself, I encountered a small weasel living up in the rocks, not happy that I had stopped near its den. A very aggressive weasel as it turned out.

anon Report

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This summer i was hiking near old forge ny, and came about 30 ft of a 250-300 lb male black bear , i didnt realize there was an open dumpster nearby. Anyway he seemed pretty interested in me and started to stand up so i quickly backed away. Made my heartstop.

Mandalorian1313 Report

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My uncle's a trucker. He was once going up the mountains in south Queensland and had to stop on the side of the road to take a leak. This was around 11pm at night. It was quiet except for the occasional other car passing. Oh, and the giant thumping noise coming from the trees. Emus don't go up that high, and if it was a kangaroo, it would have run off before being heard, same as a wallaby. Cassowaries don't go that far south, so it was either a very fat mountain goat, or our version of bigfoot. these are my uncles words, not mine.

User Report

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