Outdoor Enthusiasts Tell The Creepiest Things They've Seen

"Some friends and I took my truck up in the mountains during the winter time and we towed each other on a tube across the snow. We'd drop the tailgate in my old long-bed Ford and a few guys would sit in the back with one of those bazillion candlelight spotlights. When I was driving it'd be fun to make really wide turns in the dark so the person on the tube didn't have the luxury of headlights or taillights to somewhat illuminate their trail. The person in the bed of the truck with the spotlight would be funny and shine the light clear off to the side so it was pitch black if you were on the tube. One particular winter night, a snowstorm was rolling in so we headed up to the usual spot. It was really DARK that night. I was driving while a friend sat on the tube.  

The guy with the spotlight shined the light clear to the side of the truck and as I checked my mirror, I made eye contact with a guy dressed in jeans, a red plaid shirt, and an orange baseball cap. As we made eye contact, I lost all control of my body for probably only five seconds, but it felt like an eternity. I stopped the truck and turned it around and asked the guys if they saw him. They all said no, so I flipped the truck around and turned on the high beams and they shined the spotlight all over. I got out and looked for footprints in the fresh snow and saw nothing. 

That night we went back home and I told my dad about the weird experience and didn't think anything of it. A week later on the news, the police reported finding a body in the area close to where we were and asked for any tips. My dad convinced me to call the police and tell them we were up in the area and saw that guy. I called and an investigator came over to the house, I told him I saw that man seven days ago. As soon as I said that, the investigator asked me, "Are you are sure about the date?" When I said I was positive, he showed me a picture of the body they found wearing the same red plaid shirt and orange ball cap. Turns out it was a man who suffered from some mental handicaps and committed suicide on the mountain, one month BEFORE I saw him."

"Two buddies of mine and I were on a night dive in the Puget Sound hunting for prawns. It was about 1 a.m. and we are about 100 feet deep, in pitch black. We like to do this thing on night dives where we'd get in a circle, turn off our lights, then stir up the water and watch the bio-luminescence float around us like floating stars in a black watery space. Only this time after we turn off our lights, the water glows just enough to reveal a fourth person sitting in our circle. We were at a dive resort so it wasn't so odd to see another diver, only it was 1 a.m. and we'd seen no one else prepping a dive at the dock. He was also alone which was odd considering the dangerous conditions of a night dive in those waters, plus he had no fins or gloves.

I don't know how he swam so well without fins or didn't get hypothermia without boots or gloves. We wore drysuits because it was so cold but this guy was in a wetsuit with exposed skin and we thought we saw a giant gash in one of the legs. The three of us all notice him and we're too scared to move. It is absolutely terrifying when someone just shows up 100 feet underwater at night. I can hear my buddies panting into their regulators. The guy just simply smiled at us and waved before swimming away."

"My cousin Charlie needed someone to babysit his house in San Luis Obispo so I volunteered. I was staying at his place by myself getting lost in a Lord of The Rings marathon until around 2:30 a.m. The marathon ended and I proceed to make some green tea. That's when I hear a distant scream. I knew it was a human scream but for some reason I just refused to believe it. The thing about the houses in that area is that you have a lot of room between you and your neighbors but you can still hear them if someone is loud. I thought maybe the neighbor screamed because they were watching a scary film. That's when I heard something similar to multiple firecrackers going off.

Something didn’t seem right, so I grabbed the nearest blunt object and headed upstairs. My cousin Charlie has a 360 degree second deck so I went out and turned on the outside lights. I listened but I could only hear the wind. What I later found out from my Cousin Charlie is that a man had a big argument with his wife and shot her as she ran from the house. Because I was the only one who had left the outside lights on, she had ran towards me but [succumbed to] her wounds just short of Charlie's house. That part still gives me chills."

"In college, I spent one month house sitting a large hunting estate in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. The nearest town was 22 miles away. The house belonged to my girlfriend at the time’s dad who asked to fill in for the caretaker. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone knocking loud and hard on the front door and the dogs were going nuts. There was no way I was going to answer it. I just grabbed a gun and kept quiet upstairs. There were several neighbors that were a few miles away, so I thought someone just simply drove up the wrong driveway. Next morning at dawn, I open the front door to let the dogs out and see a white Chevy Nova sitting in the driveway. There was only one set of tire tracks coming in to the house. I called my girlfriend's dad and asked him if he knew anyone with that make/ model car and told him about what had happened the night before.

He didn't know anyone and he called the police. They show up ask me a few questions and walk around the property for about an hour or so. The car was locked, so the police had it towed. A few days later, my girlfriend's dad called me up to say the guy who owned that car was missing and to call the police if anything weird happened again. I have no idea who the guy was at all. I found out later that the owner of the car was found dead by suicide 30 miles away. The suicide happened several months after that incident at the house, and he was found a couple of days after... I still wonder what would have happened if I had answered the door."

"I was out in the Dark Canyon Wilderness of Utah after two weeks of driving and backpacking around the country alone. The plan was a seven-day trip and after a few days of setbacks I was on my last night. By this time I was already a little scared of the dark but that's just what happens when you are your only company for three weeks. Anyway, on the sixth day, about halfway through my hike, I ran out of water. I made camp and went upstream in search of water. After a little hiking I found a little spring with deliciously cold refreshing water. I drank some before realizing I didn't bring my water bottles so I hiked the half mile or so back to the camp to get them. On my trip back to fill my water bottles, I kept feeling really vulnerable and uncomfortable. Every little rustle in the bushes set me off. I could hear birds calling in the distance that set me off. I kept looking for something following me.

I can only describe my emotion as pure terror. It got to the point where I picked up a branch [to defend myself]. I kept telling myself that it was just paranoia but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. I finally got to the water and filled up my bottle, constantly looking over my shoulder. The feeling of unease was still with me when I headed back to my camp.There I came upon a fresh mountain lion print placed directly between my two footprints. It's one thing to think that your fears are unfounded paranoia, it's much worse to know they are true."

"I spent an entire year at my cousin's farm in Colombia. It's very deep into the mountains and 90 percent of his land is covered in forest. One day I was picking some tomatoes when suddenly the whole mountain goes silent. Not a single animal made a sound. All of a sudden every critter imaginable starts coming out of every hole and every crack and starts running uphill. Massive tarantulas, huge cockroaches, beetles, mice, rats, etc. Anything that crawled on land was rushing away. Then the dogs started barking and whimpering. My cousin yelled, "La ronda, La ronda!" which means "The round, the round!" He tells me to get inside the house.

Then he gets a bag out with some sort of [toxin] and starts pouring it outside the house. I hear what sounds like running water coming uphill from the trees. I looked outside and saw what was probably millions of ants crawling up the mountain and eating every living thing in their path. It was absolutely terrifying. I couldn't see the ground because there were so many ants. Luckily, [it] worked and the ants crawled away from the house. My cousin was happy because the ants [wiped out] whatever pests were around."