People Describe Their Most Terrifying Middle-Of-Nowhere Camping Experiences

From a former Redditor:

I was in my tent, and it was the middle of the night, perhaps 1 am, and I had woken up to go pee, just like normal. I was about to unzip the tent when I heard a small scratching sound. I paused. It was a slow, deliberate, crunchy, digging sound. It was too rhythmic for an animal, so after making sure it wasn't my dad, who was sharing the tent, I unzipped a corner of the door and peeked out. The moon was just bright enough for me to see a young woman squatting right next to our little two-man tent, digging at the ground with her bare hands. My dad went and shined a flashlight on her and told her to go back to wherever she had made camp. The woman got up silently, leaving a four-inch deep hole next to the tent, and started walking away. I went outside, went pee, and got back into my sleeping bag.

A few minutes later, I was awoken again by a clattering sound of a person or an animal walking around where we had put our stuff. I looked outside again, and the woman was crouched low, walking around our stuff and looking at things the way a monkey might. My father stepped out of the tent, shined the flashlight on her again, and she faced him. He asked her to kindly leave their stuff alone, but she just stood there, dirty and neglected looking, but clearly not malnourished, staring at his light. He gave up and went back into our tent.

Soon, we heard her digging again at her little hole, which was literally 6 inches and two pieces of thin nylon away from my head. I shouted for her to go away, and she ran away in an animalistic kind of way, and never returned. I fell back asleep, and in the morning, our stuff was scattered, but nothing was stolen.

From Redditor /u/ITS_A_BADTIME_BOB:

I was backpacking in New Hampshire and camped out for the night after a day hike. I wandered off from our fire to go pee and stumbled upon a circle etched into the ground with tuning forks surrounding the circle standing up straight. It looked like a creepy ritual circle, and it bugged me out, so I booked it back to the group.

From Redditor /u/SenorPuffyPants:

I work in the outdoor field and lead trips regularly. I once led a trip to the top of Mt. Stringer in North Carolina. It's a tough climb to get to the top and about 6 miles from the nearest road. I was leading a group of eight middle school kids and had one co-instructor. We were camping out on top of the mountain, and it was a beautiful night with a full moon.

The kids and the other co-instructor went to bed in their tents. I chose to spend the night in a hammock that night. I was really into a book I was reading, so I stayed up and read until about 10:30 pm. I turned my headlamp off to settle in for the night. Everything around me was rather bright from the moon, and from the position I was in, I could see down the trail we had hiked to get to the top.

I laid there enjoying the scenery and noticed something moving on the trail. Bears are common in the area so I perked up. As it got closer, I could tell it was a person. We were in the middle of nowhere and there was someone hiking up the trail with no headlamp or any gear. I was just frozen watching this person move closer to our camp. The person arrived at the top of the mountain where we were and just stopped. I watched as what appeared to be a man surveyed our camp. I really could only see the outline of him. He stood there for what seemed like 30 minutes but may have been 10. He then turned and sat down under a tree facing our camp. He was sitting up in a way that I knew he wasn't trying to sleep. He just sat there staring at our camp. I had no idea what to do. I decided to wait it out. I waited, just staring at the man while he stared at my camp.

This went on until about 3:30 am. Then, he stood up, took a moment to survey my camp a few minutes longer and then went back down the trail he came up on. I, to this day, have no idea what that was all about, but it freaked me out. I was paranoid that we were being followed for the rest of the trip.

From a former Redditor:

I woke up in the morning and walked out of the tent to find a sheep ripped apart and scattered across a 20-foot area, about 10 feet from our campsite.

The creepy part is this was in the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland. There aren't any wild predators there bigger than a fox, and certainly nothing big enough to tear a sheep to shreds.

From Redditor /u/nrhinkle:

I had been out stargazing and was sleeping out in a park near town - no tent, just a sleeping bag and pad. This was a fairly popular area for joggers, walkers, etc. I had found a nice spot in a field few hundred meters from the top, obscured by tall grass and brush, but with a nice view of the valley below and mountains in the distance. It was very nice! I saw some shooting stars, heard coyotes singing in the distance, and slept very well since it was a warm summer night.

In the morning, at the crack of dawn, I was woken up by one of the strangest performances I've ever witnessed. Above me on the hill, I could hear some kind of chanting. Due to my concealed location, I couldn't actually see what was going on, and I wasn't keen on moving to a better vantage point lest I be seen by the group. A man's loud and deep voice was half chanting, half shouting in a language I couldn't identify. It sounded like a Latin-derived language, but was definitely not Spanish, though he kept repeating a word which sounded similar to "diablo" (Spanish for the devil). There were other voices too, but he was clearly leading whatever was happening up there.

Eventually, he finished his chant, and there were some cheers and whoops, and then the entire group silently departed. After waiting a while to make sure it was clear, I went up to where the sound had come from - there was no physical evidence of whatever had happened. I asked everybody I knew in town if they had any idea what it might have possibly been, and nobody had heard anything like it. To this day, one of my greatest regrets is not peeking out of my hiding spot to see what the heck was going on.

From Redditor /u/goat-of-mendes:

A couple of years ago, my brother bought a large piece of land out in the middle of nowhere, about 30 miles or so from cell phone reception. It's quiet, there is no light pollution, no paved roads, and not a lot of people around. Shortly after he bought the place, our families spent a weekend camping on the land and doing our best to clean it up.

On the second night we camped there, I woke up in the middle of the night to take a leak. As I was walking to the bushes in the dark, I realized that I could faintly hear music. This didn't strike me as odd because I knew my brother had a radio in his camper. I finished up and went back to sleep with no further thought on the matter. The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned the radio and music. Several other people recalled waking up at night and hearing music, but no two people heard the same music.

Finally, the brother who brought the radio woke up. I asked him about the music, and he seemed a bit freaked out. He woke up sometime during the night and went outside to smoke. He heard music as well and had assumed it was someone else. I should mention that he was the only one with a generator and a radio. It wasn't his radio we heard; it wasn't anyone else's either.

I've been back several times, but I'm a bit freaked out by that place at night. I have fun while I'm there, but I'm almost always armed, and I don't sleep in a tent anymore - I sleep in my SUV with the doors locked. It may seem kinda dumb, but realizing that everyone heard different music when there are no people, no functional radios, and no electricity is quite creepy.