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While it’s quite pleasant to be around trees and nature, if you’ve ended up in some uncharted part of the woods, you’ve probably experienced that creeping feeling of unease. So even the smallest thing being “off” becomes the sort of story you tell people later around a campfire.
Someone asked “What is the creepiest thing you found in a forest?” and people took to the internet to share their best stories. So if you are interested in some unsettling tales, get comfortable, upvote your favorites as you scroll through and be sure to share your own thoughts in the comments down below.
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#1
Found a tomb stone in the woods when we were kids. The area in front of it where the casket would be was sunken in about 6 inches. Looking around there were other similar sunken in areas but no other tomb stones. It was a woman’s name on the tomb stone and she was born in the 1800’s and died in 1914.
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#2
Spent most of my childhood in the woods so I’ve got a couple stories.
The creepiest man made thing was likely a prank. Someone set up a bunch of those little Blair Witch stick people things around campsites the year it came out. I only saw brief bits of the movie before that but the older kids in my Boy Scout troupe were freaked out and I got scared second hand haha.
The actual creepiest thing was a live mountain lion. I don’t know if the wind kept our scent off it or if it just didn’t feel like messing with humans or what but the beast walked almost right through our camp. Probably 7-7.5 feet long. You don’t realize how big that is until you see it skulking past, muscles rippling under its pelt.
Andrew Keir 2 hours ago
Respect to all of you for not freaking out, scaring it and bringing down the thing you feared
#3
We camp alot. Where we camp there are a lot of old mining cabins out in the mountains along the forest service roads. No one is ever back there except people ripping through in a jeep. We were camping one time and my kids brought a metal detector with to see if we could find anything. Barried about 3 ft down around one of the old cabins was this big 1ftx1ft metallic rock. Looked almost like silver. It was very heavy and would go off under the "precious metals" setting on the metal detector. We wrapped it up in a towel we had laying around and set it in my truck. We were certain we found something expensive. When we got home, I grabbed it and thought that's weird it seems lighter. I unwrapped the towel to find a bunch of broken twigs. My kids(11 and 13) thought I was messing with them. We still go back every year looking for it but have no clue to this day why it was gone. Maybe cursed and a good thing it's gone?
#4
A sled caught in a tree branch about 30 ft in the air.
#5
A dead raven skewered on a stick that was sticking up from the ground like a sign post. It had it's wings spread wide and beak and eyes open.
#6
When I was 14, a friend and I would go fishing just about everyday of summer, we would walk about an hour to hour and half through the woods and over bogs to a series of rivers that we called the steadies, they flowed into a very large lake. The last trip there; we were walking along one of the rivers (the rivers are narrow, maybe 5 feet across) at 14 very easy to jump across from side to side, anyway we stumbled up on a large pile of animal bones, we kinda got worried but assumed maybe a hunter quartered their game there. We walked to the edge of the bank and right in the centre of the river clear as day was a large foot print, bare foot distinguishable toes, but just one, the left, it was big even more so magnified by the water, I called to my friend to look but as I said his name I heard a loud rumble, and the trees shaking on the other side. I looked to my friend but all I saw was the dust he was kicking up from running away, to which I promptly followed, never went back. We Told people no one believed us.
#7
My friends and I went canoe camping in a new provincial park. We had this neat trip planned, we'd get flown into the middle of the park with out canoes, and canoe our way out over the course of a week.
First night, everything is pretty normal and cool. Next day, we go over to the head of a trail up a mountain. (Mountain is a little bit of a misnomer, it's Ontario so our mountains are pretty small). The base of the trail is in a campsite. We get out of our canoes, and go up into the campsite to find the trail.
The campsite is a wreck. Like, clothes tossed all around in the mud. A dehydrated meal, that someone clearly hacked into with a knife, barely eaten. Snack wrappers and trash. A couple pairs of shoes. Three different tarps, torn down and muddy. A sleeping bag, I think. Thing you wouldn't expect to be left behind, even with the messiest of campers. No sign of anyone around (but plenty of evidence there had been at least 3-5 people here). No sign of a canoe. Keep in mind, this is a lake you can ONLY access via several days of canoing/hiking or a plane.
To this day, we don't know what happened there. It was a week before we got out of the park ourselves (and we were in a rough state when we did, it was a very rainy trip) so we never really found out what had happened. Some members of our party said that they saw a canoe at the site the previous night (because they'd wanted that site, and it had been occupied.) but we woke up hella early and didn't see anything leave. Our best guess is still that someone had an emergency (maybe hypothermia. It was real rainy), they'd called out for an emergency rescue, and in their haste left behind a lot of stuff.
Edit: okay guys, I hear you, you think it was a bear. I highly doubt it, and here's why:
- No tracks. This is the big one
- The campsite was missing a lot of the essential things. Like tents and packs. They clearly had time to pack up *some* gear.
- There was a lot of partially eaten food out. The dehydrated meal still had a spoon in it, and it had been opened in a way to make a bowl. Bears don't have that much dexterity. There was baggies of trail mix, still sealed.
- The mess was *very* human. There were clothes that had been laid near the fire or over logs, and the shoes were also set up to dry.
#8
An old tin roof shack with piles of clothes and voodoo bottles. My parents owned a large piece of property with fields, patches of woods and multiple dilapidated 100+ year old structures. Out of all the creepy shacks and barns, the one that gave me the heebie jeebies was one in the woods at the corner of our property by a swampy pond. It was uninsulated with a bare wood floor and no lights and a deep hole outside for water. There was a old crusty whitewall tire tied to a tree like a swing. My dad said when they first moved out there 30 years ago there was an old black man that lived there called “the preacher man”. He had a guitar and would play songs and sing spirituals and stuff. He said the old guy would roll a wheelbarrow up and down our deserted country roads singing to himself and collecting junk out of the ditches. Hence the mound of leftover garbage still inside the shack. The woods were always quiet around there, which was nice for hiking around during the day but got spooky in the evening. One day I noticed that there were old bottles placed high up in the branches of a bunch of the trees around the shack and the pond. Supposedly it had something to do with voodoo.
Chich the witch 3 hours ago
Who do voodoo? You do Voodoo? - don't know why that popped into my head or where it came from :p
#9
A pair of shoes along with an old nokia phone.
#10
I had woods behind my house as a kid. I used to go back there by myself all the time and explore. One day when I was 12 or so I stumbled across what looked like a little campsite under dirt and tree outcropping. There were towels, clothes, and some car parts scattered all about. This is fairly odd for a small stretch of woods in a regular neighborhood. I didn’t think anything much of it then cause there was plenty of junk like tires back there anyways.
Two days later, all of the kids in the neighborhood played a nightly game of hide and go seek tag. While my sister was looking for a hiding spot, a random man jumped out from a bush and ran into the woods. My sister ran home to tell our parents that a strange man was hiding around the neighborhood. The cops were coincidentally in the neighborhood at the time investigating car break ins. Turns out the guy my sister came across was stealing car parts and hiding them out in the woods behind my house...
#11
A child's drawing nailed to a tree deep off the path.
Laszlo Larthlanc 3 hours ago
Why is this creepy? Oh -- maybe this post was created by the same person who found all of those old cookbook recipes disgusting. Maybe next we'll get to see what they consider to be holy.
#12
This place we called the "tar pits." They were these deep ruts in the ground, maybe 3-4 feet deep, and they were filled with this purple/green muck that acted a lot like quicksand. It sucked whatever stepped in it in. If a small vehicle got stuck in it, it normally took a bulldozer to pull them out, with significant damage to the vehicle in the process. The stuff would rip the bumper right off of a vehicle while being pulled out.
One summer, we had a brutal drought, and the tar pits dried up. The bottom of the holes was a giant pile of bones. Animals that I figure stepped in it and couldn't get out. A lot were clearly deer, with some squirrels, possums, and some that could've been foxes or dogs.
I would still love to know what that was. I haven't been over there in years, I don't know if it's still like that.
#13
A raccoon head. Just the head, pretty fresh. I checked it out pretty carefully and it hadn't been decapitated with a knife or anything, so I figure an owl had sat in a nearby tree picking it apart and just dropped the head. But it was... unsettling.
#14
A staircase leading to nothing and no signs of a previous house being at that location.
#15
Pack of rats surrounded us in the night when we took out food. Lots of rustling leaves, realised they were rats when we shone our torches and saw those eyes.
#16
A white van hidden just off a main dirt track . The back was open and it was full of black plastic bags full of dope plants . There was no one to be seen. I got outta there real quick and went down a track you needed a 4x4 to drive down.
#17
My mother’s story- she had gotten out of the car to stretch during a long drive, and she came upon a clearing maybe five minutes into the woods. On one side of the clearing was a tent with someone moving around inside of it. Inside the clearing was a pile of deer carcasses ( maybe 20 in all) and one dead golden retriever on top. She was so freaked out that she ducked behind a bush-only to find a set of women’s lingerie and a pair of high-heeled shoes crammed under the bush. She ran and never looked back
I still get the creeps from this story.
#18
When I was around 12 years old, I was in the woods across from my house with my cousins. There are a few spots with random junk strewn around (country folks love dumping garbage places for free), so we were poking around. We found an old fashioned milk can and tipped it over. A bunch of liquid spilled out - followed by a dead baby pig. We completely freaked out and ran home. Probably should've told our parents...
#19
Maybe not that scary but kinda weird in handsight.
My grandparents lived on a pretty isolated farm that was located near some woods. As a kid, I sometimes went in there (but never too far). One time I found a wooden sculpture of a bird in there. I brought it inside the house to show my grandparents because I thought it maybe it belonged to them, but they told me they had never seen it before.
At the time, I didn't really think too much about it. But later, I randomly remembered it and started thinking about how weird it was that I found it there. Like I said, my grandparents lived pretty isolated, but the sculpture had to end up there somehow right? From what I can remember, it was definitely too heavy to be able to be carried by the wind, so I think that someone came really close to my grandparents' house and then left it there for some strange reason.
#20
A homeless encampment made of abandoned shipping containers arranged in a loose circle, and probably a roll of duct tape with a
Jar of Vaseline... both very old. Strange stuff to find in a forest.
#21
I live in Arizona so I'm substituting forest for desert.
I was out hiking though a wash/creek bed. I came across this part of the wash where trees and shrub bushes made a natural funnel. In the center of it was a dead dog on a leash. The leash wasnt tied, and I like to hope that it happened naturally. Maybe the dog got away from the owner, and got caught by accident.
#22
I was about 6 or 7 yrs old and live in an apartment with my parents, just behind of us there was a woody area and a soccer field, in the night, we were going to visit to my grandma for her birthday and as a kid, I wait my parents outside while playing with god knows what thing, a rock? a bug? whatever.. suddenly I look at the woody area and a big big light just appear like 20mt in front of me, like "parking" vertically, I run to tell my parents what I just saw and my dad told me while laughing "maybe it was an UFO", today I'm 27 and still remember that brightness, the most bright thing I ever look at.
#23
I wish I could post the picture, I was 3 km or 2 miles back in the bush, I come out to a into a clearing before a steep incline 2/3 of the way up this incline is an old doll head missing an eye. I couldn't make out what it was until coming upon it by about 50 feet. I'm way out in the bush and it's an 80's doll with the flipping eyes and the eyelashes
No reason for it to be there. none not in that location not that far from humanity, a child of the age to have a doll like that could never have been there.
Laszlo Larthlanc 3 hours ago
I've hiked to the top of many peaks in the nearby National Forest, peaks without any type of trail leading to them save for deer and bear trails. I always ignorantly hoped to find that I was the first person to ever set foot at the top of each peak, but never once found myself in a place where there weren't things like spent s*****n shells, empty Vienna sausage cans, stashed water bottles, and cigarette butts. People have been just about everywhere, I think.
#24
Wife and I were driving on rural backroads. Came across 2 trooper vehicles and a nice Cadillac parked on the side of the road. 4 cops and 3 dudes in suits just hanging out outside the cars watching us drive by. Granted we were high but it was miles from anywhere and seemed really weird.
#25
I’m sure this will be at the bottom. But anyways, I was out hunting at our normal spot. Mind you this was almost 13 yrs ago. I’m sitting in my spot, see the deer, nothing worth shooting. I’m enjoying watching the animals. It’s getting to the magic hr( twilight). About 85 yards away is this tree line. That bumps against the other property. I’ve been hunting these woods for the better part of almost five yrs. I noticed something big and black moving against the tree line. It’s moving some what cumbersome. My first thought was it’s another hunter. Get kinda upset that he decided to mess around at this late in the game. All of a sudden he takes off sprinting, this creature takes 4-5 leaps and has crossed this tree line. Mind you it’s nearly 200 yrds long. This creature maybe took 6-7 leaps and cleared it in about a few seconds. My buddy and I, had walk-in talkies to keep each other informed about our locations or if we saw deer moving to each other’s locations. I immediately tell him that something “human” is moving along the tree line at an insane speed. After I talk to him and he confirms it. I nope the hell out of there. Never saw it again.
#26
I once went with my family on a picnic in the woods in Lebanon, where I was raised. We are Muslims and we were in the Christian area so we were already a bit on edge.
We find an old abandoned home from a couple of centuries ago with a grave infront. Literally the type of settlements you'd find the ghost in the well In the early part of the witcher 3. Me and a couple of my cousins ventured a bit deeper and we found a tree stump with nails and teeth all over it. I told my older brother and we were asked to leave it alone and go back to our parents. It was definitely teeth. There was no less than 30 teeth hammered into that stump with much more nails.
#27
It was during a drought in the summer. I was headed towards an old cranberry bog when I started hearing rhythmic thumping. I come into a clearing and see out in the middle of the bog which is nothing but mud a white man in overalls and dreads rocking out on bongos. That mud is thick and deep he must have slithered out there on his belly. I noped out of there real quick.
#28
An abandoned tree house. There were no actual residential houses around.
#29
Caged dogs, used for dog fighting.
Was both brutal and terrifying. They were vicious, barking their heads off, and ready to rip my throat out, but covered in scars, missing chunks of their body, and without ears (I believe the “owners” sheared them off to prevent competitor dogs from having something to grab hold of).
#30
It's not super creepy but was hiking with a guy and stumbled upon an entire deer skeleton. All the bones were there except the skull. Everything else was picked completely clean.
#31
I was with a buddy and we were thirsty and had nothing to drink. We went looking for some berries to eat and found a cooler full of ice and beer.
#32
When parents purchased a plot of land in the forest, they found an old rusty baby stroller. In the forest that is a part of a town only on the papers. I still can't think of a why would anyone bring a stroller there and then leave it.
#33
I found a few logs at Girl Scout camp with what seemed to be some... extraterrestrial language. Even now, maybe 10 years on, and with a greater knowledge of both biology and languages, I have no way of explaining what it was. The marks were too uniform and unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
#34
Oh one i can finally answer!! me and my dad grew up hiking all over the pacific northwest, and we’ve seen and found some odd stuff, but the one that sticks out the most to me and to this day i don’t understand is this, we were hiking miles and miles away from any roads or trails or anything, we did off trail hiking and would cross several mountains at a time, i’m honestly pretty sure we were in a place no human had ever walked before, and we this 3 foot by 5 foot pile of yellow cubes half embedded or buried in the ground, they were wrapped in paper in stacks of like five i think, and they had metal caps on each end of the stacks. most of the paper had deteriorated away but they were still mostly in the order they had been packed in, only some off the top had been scattered around. a few had holes drilled through the center as well. we didn’t stay long, but my dad took pictures and we took a few with us and showed them to a forest service worker and a game warden, and neither of them had the slightest clue what they were. there were so many of them packaged all together, and they were in a place so far away and hard to get to i don’t think it’s humanly possible for anyone to carry them in there, so we figured they fell out of a plane or something, but we never did figure out what they were or how they got there.
What do you think ?
Chich the witch 3 hours ago
Used to spend a lot of time out in the woods. Two stories. 1) One night was camped and it was warm so left the tent flaps open but the bug screen closed. Woke up in the morning, rolled over in my sleeping bag to look out and was nose to nose with a skunk through the screen. We both just stared at each other for a while. I certainly was not going to be the first to move. She eventually shuffled off. 2) We were working way back of beyond in a densely wooded area. Several hours drive, an hour by ATV and then two hours by canoe.Pretty sure no-one had ever been there before. Heading up over a ridge I found a $#@! coke bottle on the ground.
liam newton-harding 4 hours ago
Centralia, PA...the inspiration for Silent Hill. In the hills above what remains of the town...a summer weight tent, and scattered clothes, in the middle of Winter. Half a dozen naked, burned barbies impaled on the branches of a tree. small, pink teddybear sitting at the bottom of the steps to a gothic church...and then the alarm on the abandoned EMT station started up.
Chich the witch 3 hours ago
Used to spend a lot of time out in the woods. Two stories. 1) One night was camped and it was warm so left the tent flaps open but the bug screen closed. Woke up in the morning, rolled over in my sleeping bag to look out and was nose to nose with a skunk through the screen. We both just stared at each other for a while. I certainly was not going to be the first to move. She eventually shuffled off. 2) We were working way back of beyond in a densely wooded area. Several hours drive, an hour by ATV and then two hours by canoe.Pretty sure no-one had ever been there before. Heading up over a ridge I found a $#@! coke bottle on the ground.
liam newton-harding 4 hours ago
Centralia, PA...the inspiration for Silent Hill. In the hills above what remains of the town...a summer weight tent, and scattered clothes, in the middle of Winter. Half a dozen naked, burned barbies impaled on the branches of a tree. small, pink teddybear sitting at the bottom of the steps to a gothic church...and then the alarm on the abandoned EMT station started up.
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