Nighttime is really its own special world, even in the 21st century where we are, generally, aware that there aren’t monsters hidden around every corner in the shadows. But that doesn’t mean that the darkness is somehow just as enjoyable as daytime if you have to spend a lot of time in it.

Someone asked “When driving at night, what is the scariest/most unexplainable thing you’ve ever seen?” and netizens shared their personal horror stories. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own thoughts and experiences to the comments below.

#1

When I was about 19 I was driving on a two lane road after work around 11pm. No other cars on the road and suddenly this guy in a red shirt on a bicycle swerved from the side of the road right in front of my car. I hit him. Felt the impact. I was yelling “OMG ” over and over and got out of the car to see how badly he was hurt. Only I didn’t see him. I couldn’t find the guy. No bike. No red- shirted guy, no dent or blood on my car. I searched the ditch with a flashlight. A couple people passed by while I was looking in the field for a body when a sheriff’s car pulled up. I told him what happened. He said I didn’t hit anyone. Told me that about 15 years earlier a young man in a red shirt was hit by a car while riding his bike right there. He died instantly. Deputy told me that every couple years someone driving thru there believes they’ve hit a red-shirted bike rider. I’d hit a ghost.

Edit: first, thanks for the award kind Stranger! Yes, this is a true story; it happened about 40 years ago and it still creeps me out. To this day I don’t like driving at night.

Image credits: tealgrayone

#2

I was driving to work, chatting on the phone with my wife to pass the time (6-8 hour drive out to the base from our home) and ahead of me was somebody riding a motorcycle. The road we were on was generally straight (Mojave desert) but had some unpredictable curves because of the road loosely following a broad wash/lake bed (like we’ve discussed, Mojave’s desert.) the person ahead of me was going between 70-90 MPH and seemed generally familiar
With the road. But, then they just sailed straight over the edge of a 45 mph curve going about 80.

I made some reactive, disgusted sound, and hung up with my wife. I immediately pulled over, called 911 and put them in my pocket, got my trauma kit, and put on gloves. I was talking to the dispatcher and explaining what had happened when I step over the bank and see, to my surprise, not a crumpled body in the sage. But a young guy, mid twenties. Picking himself up off the ground about 75 feet ahead of me and 15 feet below. He’d been launched from the motorcycle which was in terrible shape about 30 feet from him. I told him to stay still and went through a quick evaluation. He was basically fine, but super rattled (ended up
Having a broken collar bone and a mild
Concussion).

Anyway, it’s not a ghost story. But I was absolutely certain I’d just seen a person die. And was completely shocked to find him in fine form if a little shaken up.

Image credits: maphes86

#3

When I was 16 I had a junky convertible 1989 Capri. I loved that car. One night I was driving the backroads home out in the middle of nowhere Missouri. Top down, enjoying the night air. I dove under some low hanging trees and heard a weird SLAP noise from the backseat. Turned around to see a huge black snake frantically slithering towards the safety of under my seat. I nearly wrecked. I hate snakes and even though this rat snake was 100% harmless I was panicked. Pulled over screaming and called my dad to come de-snake my car.
I never road with the top down in the country again.

Image credits: CatiCom

#4

I was 19 driving home from my then bf house and stopped at a red light on the very edge of town (like city lights behind me but corn fields and shelter belts ahead of me) because it’s like 2 in the morning I’m the only one sitting at the red light. I saw something moving in my peripherals and because of my location I thought it was gonna be a deer. I turned my head and locked eyes with a man maybe in his 50s creeping towards my car. When he saw that I saw him he froze and it was then then that I noticed he had a tire iron. I ran the red light and sped out of there.

Image credits: QuiteLady1993

#5

Getting a feeling that I needed to turn my brights on in a dark spot in the middle of town … And there ended up being 4 deer just chilling in the road that I wouldn’t have seen until I was much closer.

Image credits: ellanida

#6

Scariest thing was this dude who was hitchhiking except something was strange about him. He wore his hoodie down when it wasn’t raining, it was actually a hot humid night in Alabama, and also his other arm was behind his back. When I passed him by I looked on my rear view mirror and saw behind his back was a shotgun.

Image credits: bonafide_stonah

#7

This was quite recent … with the popularization of the app ” randonautica ” I decided with some friends to go see some locations, we went to a first one … nothing special, a small square without much to see … in the second when we were driving to her we see on a post a photo of us in the first location … someone was following us. one of my friends suggested to go to the second location (to which we were driving) explore it and return to the house (while our plan at first was to spend the whole night exploring locations) then, we arrived at the second location and the same as the first … nothing special until we saw that there was a box on a park bench … a box with a paper written in binary code and with a link from google maps, we translated the binary code … it said ” Do you want us to go for some fun? ” We did not understand the message until we saw the google maps link … it was the location of my best friend’s house.

Image credits: maxertiano

#8

A friend and I were driving down some gravel roads one night, aimlessly turning and trying to get lost and find our way back home out of boredom.

So we’re driving down a long stretch and it’s pitch black out, no houses or lights nearby just the gravel and fields around us. Suddenly I see a large, black mass running next to the car and keeping up with us. I scream and point, my friend screams and slams on the brakes. We’re both in sheer panic mode as this thing stops and turns around to run back at the car. I thought this was the end. Some paranormal creature was about to k*ll us.. annnnd it was just a big, black, wild dog.

The relief and laughter that followed felt so good after being so f*****g scared. The dog was huge to be fair but it keeping up with the car while we drove is what had me thinking it wasn’t some normal animal we see out here.

Image credits: uneasyandcheesy

#9

A driver drove past me by my right side.

I was driving in a single lane street next to a cliff on my right and a mountain (no road) to the left. I slammed my brakes and let it sit for some minutes before driving again.

To this day I’m not sure of what I saw.

Image credits: esr95tkd

#10

My mom tells this story about when she was young and her mom was driving home from shopping. The car they were in broke down, and in the car behind them a guy gets out and offers to help and fix it there at the side of the road. Thing is, after they were done fixing the car (I think she says they ran out of oil or something like that) the guy, and his car, just disappeared. Gone. Nada. Didn’t see him get in the car and leave, just one moment he and his car where there, and then next they were gone. While the story isn’t particularly scary, but my grandmother was petrified, and they drove quietly all the way home.

Image credits: Lucky_Luna_

#11

This happened to me when I was 20 years old and my car was about a year and a half old. I was driving home from work at about midnight, coming through residential streets. The boulevard that I was on was four lanes with a cement divider that had plants in it along the way. I was halfway through an intersection, and my car stalled. My foot was on the gas, and suddenly the car was dead. Luckily, they were no other cars that I could see, so I brought my car to a stop, put it in park, and started it up with no problems.

Then I looked up.

Coming straight at me we’re headlights. Someone had turned from a side street and instead of going across the median to turn left going down the correct side of the street, they had turned left into my lane thinking it was only a 2 Lane Road.

Had my car not stalled when it did, I would’ve plowed head first into that car. In the five years that I own that car, it never stalled again.

Image credits: OKDanemama

#12

When I was 16, my parents had told me to get my butt home because a huge snowstorm was coming. I was at my boyfriend’s so I threw a fit, and my parents were like, “Fine. But you have to drive yourself home and be home by curfew: 9pm.”

I had never driven in the snow. I left his house around 7, and there was already about 5in on the ground, and it was still snowing HEAVILY. It was also pitch black out. Both my boyfriend and my parents lived in this small farming town, so I was only about 4 minutes up the road, should be easy to get home right? Wrong.

The whole drive took 1.5ish hours. I couldn’t see anything with the vortex of snow. There weren’t streetlights in my town. I could barely go 2mph in my tiny car.

As I’m almost home, like I can literally see my street, my headlights illuminated a little girl in the middle of the road, not dressed for the weather. I slammed my brakes, but due to the snow I skidded for about a quarter mile. I felt the impact of hitting her. When I finally did stop, I got out with my phone flashlight to look for her. Nobody.

I decided it was best to get home and tell my parents. We lived next door to the town fire dept, so my dad had them go look for her. They easily found where my car had put the brakes on, but nobody was there. There was damage to my headlight, so I definitely hit SOMETHING, but they couldn’t find anything.

To this day my dad says it must have been a deer, but I know what I saw…

Image credits: meowdolf–kitler

#13

Well we’re weren’t driving. But it was in a car a night.

My buddy and I order a pizza from a 24 hr place. We were parked out side in my car. Its like 1 am. I’m talking to my friend. Just about whatever. Maybe it was movies. I was in the middle of a hot take of some sort, and I look over at my friend and he’s starin at me.

Now this buddy. He never looked anyone in the eye. If he did it was glance. He was just one of those guys that was uncomfortable with eye contact. So now he’s staring at me. Slack jawed. And I’m like ‘dude, what’s up?’ and he just sort of feebily points over my shoulder.

I turn around and look out my window to see a homeless man lunging his face at my window. Stopping just a half and inch away from full-blown headbutting my window. He has this look on his face. Like he has been caught. He sorta runs away.

I turn back to my friend ‘what the f**k was that all about?’ and my friend explains why he was frozen.

This guy had walked past. Saw we were in the car. Then he backed up and started to run full speed at the car. He was a split second away from slamming full force into the side of our car when my friend pointed out the window at him and I turned. Which cause the guy to stop dead in his tracks, causing him to stumble and stop half an inch away from my car.

Don’t know what that guys intentions where. Still creeps me out.

Image credits: jonfranklin

#14

Late to the party but…a purple balloon. I was just driving home when a purple balloon just floats across my vision, still mid-air and in a relatively unpopulated area. Stopped to take some pictures, thankfully balloon was harmless and did not eat me.

#15

100% swear this really happened.

Friends and I went to a haunted bridge one night. The story goes that the dad k*lled the entire family back in the 1800s and buried them under the bridge. If you go and put your car in neutral, the kids will push you across the bridge.

We all thought it was stupid but wanted to check it out. We go buy some flower and spread it on the back of the car to “catch” evidence as a joke. The bridge is outside the main city area (Austin, tx) so we didn’t feel it was too scary when we pulled up.

We get to the bridge around midnight and put the car in neutral. I’m driving the car. The road is flat and might even have a slight uphill so the car should not move. The car slowly starts moving forward. Friends think I’m pranking them, which I assure them I am certainly not. I even lift my legs to show them. As we move a little faster I put it in drive and hightail it out of there.

We make it to a gas station and all get out of the car trying to collect ourselves. We go around back and there are little finger prints on the back of the car.

We all swore to never check out an urban legend again.

#16

While driving across Luisiana on I10, I saw a flying car.

There’s a bridge that’s about 40 miles long on that road. There was no other car in sight. And far ahead of me on that bridge there was this car about 8 feet above the road. It was kind of bobbing as it flew.

It was a very dark night. All I could see was it’s tail lights. I tried to convince myself it was just a trick of perspective. It just looked like it was higher than the road.

It was freaky, and scary. I was slowly gaining on it, so I slowed down.

I eventually speeded up, telling myself I was stupid being scared of it. Couldn’t really be a flying car. Not a ghost or something.

As I slowly creeped up it was definitely about 8 feet above the road.

As I got closer I finally saw. It was bring hauled on a flat bed truck like a wrecker. The truck had no tail lights, so I guess the truck driver turned on the car’s tail lights .

It gets spooky at night down in those swamps.

Later edit after some replies.
I was wrong, it’s not 40 miles long.
It’s 29.2 miles long.

Atchafalaya Basin Bridge I10 Louisiana USA.

#17

My mom told me this story. She was in the car with my sister who was driving and they were on their way back from some event. The street lights on this particular stretch of road weren’t working very well and it was difficult to see. My sister is chatting away and my mom is watching the road when all of a sudden she sees in front of the car a bike rack, complete with bikes on it, that looked as if it had just dropped off the back of someone’s car and they didn’t notice. She screams “BIKES” at the top of her lungs, my sister swerves, over corrects, spins, and then comes to a stop on the other side of the road facing the opposite direction, miraculously avoiding all the cars that were going by. A few cars stop to make sure they’re okay. My sister looks at my mom and asks her how she even saw the bikes because she didn’t see them until they were almost about to hit them. My mom said she saw them and it looked like they were illuminated by a gentle blue light, but they looked back and those bikes were just sitting in the darkness. Creepy.

Image credits: escherthecat

#18

I haven’t seen any comments mention it yet but I fully expect someone will.

If you see a deer on the road that… _isn’t quite right_… in some way or another, it’s probably chronic wasting disease. It’s a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (prion disease) that often presents in ways like the deer is rotting while still alive. This can mean a lot of things, like deer with weird postures, pieces falling off of them, etc. so in the dark at night it can look really freaky. Like a monster that is trying to look like a deer but didn’t quite get it down.

I’ve heard several “I saw a monster on the side of this mountain road one night” stories that were almost certainly a deer with progressed chronic wasting disease. It’s very sad but also quite fascinating, if it wouldn’t gross you out to read about.

#19

About 25 years ago my sister and I were driving on a normally busy road, but it was late at night and was deserted. We could both see something flapping on the road up ahead. I asked her what it was and my sister said she didn’t know but that it looked like a black garbage bag. I agreed, it really looked like a bag lying on the road being whipped lightly by the wind.

As we approached it completely changed shape. It went from being quite flat and small to morphing into a fully grown man on a bike. He was just standing there in the middle of the road with his bike. We pulled alongside and asked if he was ok. He nodded but didn’t speak. We drove off.

We STILL talk about it because it was the strangest, creepiest thing ever and we both still can’t explain what we saw.

Image credits: Kimberley7462

#20

Four years ago I’m driving across the Colorado / New Mexico border at around 4am and I’m looking for a place to stop for fuel. I happened along the smallest and saddest little farm town with only one tiny gas station. I hadn’t seen another car for hours, it’s freezing cold, and it felt like this town was abandoned it was that quiet… honestly it was kind of cool except for the cold.

I’m pumping away feeling like I’m completely alone, until I notice another car in the shadows near the back of the building. Flashy black low rider with completely tinted windows and 4 “right out of a Mexican Gangster movie” looking guys leaning against it. I remember laughing because 1, they startled the hell out me and 2, they were wearing the black shorts, wife beater tank tops and the knee high socks. Remember it was FREEZING cold, it was the middle of nowhere, and they looked so casual.

Without a word, all 4 got off the car and walked straight towards me until I could see the full sleeves and face tattoos under the pump lights. Dropped the gas pump, fired up the motor and did the greatest 0-100 that old girl had ever seen. Not 20 seconds after burning out onto the highway, I see headlights swerve out and follow me. Little did they know, my beat up looking dodge truck had the hemi motor and a couple of upgrades, they never had a chance and after a few miles their headlights disappeared in my rear view mirror.

I didn’t think much of it, and even laughed at how bad I outran them till a cop buddy told me about the Mexican Cartels running d***s through there to avoid the Interstate. I wasn’t laughing anymore.

Image credits: DieselDown

#21

I used to date this girl who lived in a house in the middle of the woods and her driveway was like a mile long single car road. I was driving up it around midnight to go home and my drivers side window exploded and showered me with glass.

Turns out a deer had rammed into the driver side of my car. Completely destroyed that side and I had to get out of the passenger’s side. I never even saw the deer, I assume it ran away but there was a perfect hoof print in one of the doors

Edit – spellin’.

Image credits: mrbeefthighs

#22

It wasn’t exactly something I saw, but some point halfway through my drive home, at about 8:30 ish at night, a guy started following me. It couldn’t have been for very long, because I didn’t notice he was there until I pulled into my driveway and he parked there at the entrance, got out, hiking his horn and screaming some sort of nonsense. Bunch of s**t like “we f*****g know where you live! F**k you!” over and over again and not saying anything about why he had followed me. F****n terrified me. Worst thing? Happened two days ago. Still have no idea why or who it was. Been staying at my mom’s bc if some random angry man knows where I live then for the time being I don’t live there.

Image credits: Aubsedobs

#23

Maybe not scary but I was driving home in the middle of the night years back and a meteorite came into sight and lit the entire sky up like it was daytime for a few seconds. Pretty crazy to see and it had landed a few hours away from where I was.

#24

I’ve got two.

First, I was driving home from visiting family late at night. I was on a 2 lane highway in the middle of nowhere. Farms all around and spotty cell phone reception. If you didn’t have headlights on, you couldn’t see anything. My radio started cutting out and my headlights started getting dimmer all of a sudden. I turned the radio off and was just listening to the silence as my headlights were getting worse and worse, when all of a sudden, I hit a huge bump in the road. My radio came back on LOUD and my headlights were at full brightness. It was the weirdest car thing I’ve ever dealt with. But I would have been screwed if I’d broken down out there.

Second, driving home from a friend’s house in the city at 2am. As I’m coming around a corner I see this creature crawling along the road. It was definitely larger than a raccoon, but smaller than a medium sized dog. It was moving slowly and sort of wobbled as it walked. I slowed down because I wanted to see what on earth it was. As I get up along size it, it scurries directly toward my car and I stepped on the gas. I looked in my rearview mirror and nothing was there. Still not sure what it was…

Image credits: nannerdooodle

#25

Im from the north eastern part of Pennsylvania, far into the Appalachian wilderness. Theres a marsh not far from my house thats locally famous for having a large black mountain lion living in it. Everyone from out of the area says mountain lions don’t live in Pennsylvania, but several people in my town have reported it, including local wildlife experts. I dont know how I feel about it, but it scares me just the same.

I was driving home one night late from work and decided to take my old Hyundai Sonata through the marsh road instead of the slower way through town. On either side of the road, tall cattails and goldenrod blocked vision beyond about 20 feet. At the edge of my lights I saw something slink across the road, and figured at first that it was a dog. So I pulled up to where it entered the reeds, rolled down my window, and called out to it, saying something along the lines of “here boy”. I heard a deep growl followed by a terrifying shriek/scream noise. Then I saw a a pair of eyes reflecting in the bushes, walking for the car. I gunned the gas and drove the rest of the way home without stopping.

I dont know what I saw or heard that night. It could’ve been a few different animals making noises at the same time I suppose. I’ve hunted and trapped for years and know what bears, foxes, coyotes etc sound like, and it didn’t sound like any of those. I’ve always told everyone that I had seen “The Cat” that night, but in all honesty I dont know. I dont walk unarmed through that part of the marsh anymore though.

Image credits: a3452

#26

I was driving to a friend’s house during a storm once when I was about 17, almost 18 years ago. The storm was already bad and getting worse by the minute.. this was in west central Texas, where the storms are known to kick up ferociously. Anyway I’m going like 10 miles an hour, trying to see through the storm, when all of a sudden everything stopped. The wind, the rain, everything. During that quick break in the storm, I saw a golden-orange mist, in the shape of a person, move in front of my car, from the right curb to the left… as soon as it approached the left curb, it disappeared, and the storm came back in full force. I’ll never forget it, even though it only seemed to last a few seconds.

#27

Once I was traveling in night when I saw something unexplainable thing. A bike without a rider. First I thought it was a illusion or a prank. After watching it for sometime I came to realise that it was definitely running without a driver. I got shocked and went my way. Recently I came across a youtube cctv footage recorded from a phone camera type video where I found the exact same thing. A bike running on the street without a rider. I have no idea what it was.

#28

>When driving at night, what is the scariest thing you’ve ever seen?

Huge truck with no lights and all reflectors covered with mud, stalled in a shadowed patch of darkness totally blocking the right lane of a lonely country highway with no shoulders.

A wall of invisible steel waiting to k*ll some less observant motorist.

#29

My brother and I were driving down a super remote road late at night many years ago. Wildlife was common so we drove slower than was posted. An accident could be fatal on this road. Anyway, it was a particularly dark night so we had the high beams on and were really concentrating on the journey.

We saw it at the same time. It was impossible to miss. My brother hit the brakes and we skidded to a stop in front of the biggest f*****g cow on earth. We could have driven under it with room to spare. It was massive. And it stared at us without seeming to see us. The vibe was so creepy. Other cows were around but they were regular sized. This guy was the king of all bovine.

It doesn’t seem all that weird when telling the story but something was just off with this creature. It didnt seem quite…natural.

#30

I was working a night shift and rode a moped to work, the headlight was fairly dim but on the way home I saw what I can only describe as what looked like.. black pants, floating slowly just overhead but making a walking motion as they passed, I got a good look and I still cant make heads or tails of what it actually was and I sure as f**k wasn’t going back to double check.

#31

This was probably 15 years ago. My best friend in high school and I were out late. I don’t remember why. Being dumb teenagers.

Anyway it’s like 1am and we are taking the normal shortcut road back towards her house. Suddenly I see I’m the ditch to my right something lumped and white. It takes about 1.8 seconds for me to realize it looked just like a body lying face down. I say to her “Did you see that in the ditch?! Was that a body?!” She says “I was about to ask you the same thing what the f**k?!” So she turns around at the stop sign up ahead and goes back. We can’t quite tell from the opposite side of the road if the body was still there. So down we go and turn around again. This time we are just crawling along searching the ditch.

Somehow we both glance up into the trees on a small hill above the ditch and we see it. A person in a white shirt and dark pants crouched next to and slightly behind a tree trunk staring at us. We scream bloody murder and she tears a*s out of there and we speed so hardcore back to her house I don’t know how we didn’t die.

When we calmed down the next day we figured it was someone running away? Either was in pretty sure that experience took a year or two off my life.

#32

This was back when I worked as a manager at a certain chicken chain of restaurants around 2016. We had to stay later than normal cleaning flour and water stuck to the floor. I had a coworker who was kind enough to stay a little later to help close in exchange for a ride home which I gladly agreed to. We finish up and he’s giving me directions on where to go and I end up driving in a part of town I didn’t recognize. A whole lot of farmland and open fields that felt scarily empty. It must’ve been around 1:30 AM by the time I dropped him off.

I start taking the empty rural road back, feeling a bit sketched out. As I get close to approaching where the traffic lights are that’s when I notice them. There was a group of around fifteen or so people fist fighting on the road. They looked like the stereotypical description of a Latino gang member. Long white shirts, dickies, mustaches, bald heads, you know the look. The thing is they all looked identical. It felt like I was watching clones fight amongst themselves to decide who was the real Hector.

As I get closer to them they all stopped fist fighting and turned to look at me, almost in sync. I was about twenty, twenty five-ish feet away from them, slowly inching forwards because I’m obviously not going to run people over. They all looked like deer caught in the headlights.

And then they all started running towards me.

It was as if they were all racing each other to see who could get to me first. I panicked immediately and swerved off the road and drove around them. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that they quickly gave up on the idea of catching up to me. I made it out without injury or damage to my car (thank gods), but from that point I never offered rides to anyone from work.

#33

So this s**t still gives me chills to this day.

Me and a few of my friends in college went on a hike my freshman year. We had a few tokes by the river and started heading back to the car. It was starting to get dark out so we turned our phone flashlights on for the last 5 or so minutes of the trek. We all piled in my 01 Civic (there were 6 of us) and I switched the key and turned on the headlights. I s**t you not about 30 or so feet in front of the car, just within the tree line stood a 40 or so year old man butt a*s naked. He stared at the car with zero f***s and just stood there.

I dont know what the f**k he was doing or why he was there but i’ll never forget that “is this real?” moment we all had. We all think he must’ve been high on something or he was just a wild dude lurking in the shadows. He straight up looked like tom hanks in cast away.

#34

When I was 17 my best friend & I drove to a rural town about 1.5 hours away. We were talking to cute boys that lived there and were invited to a party one weekend.

On the drive back home it was dark and started snowing, like hard. I was young & hadn’t been driving for very long and started to get freaked out. We hadn’t told our parents we were driving to this town, it was pitch black, and the snow started sticking fast. At the time I had an 8-year-old basic little sedan that didn’t do great on slippery roads. A semi-truck came up behind me and clearly wanted to pass, but it was a two lane road and I don’t think it was legal in that area. After a few minutes, they started riding my a*s so aggressively I panicked and hurriedly pulled over to the side when I saw a wide enough space. All I could see was what my headlights could reach – and all of a sudden a big animal appeared in my headlights just as I was angling my steering wheel to the side of the road. If I would’ve gone straight another 10 feet I would have hit it. It was a live animal, but under the circumstances neither my friend or I could tell what it was. We guessed maybe a cow. If I would’ve hit it, it would have really damaged my little car, in a blizzard, in the pitch black, at 17 years old, in a rural area, when my parents didn’t know where I was.

tl;dr I wonder how I didn’t die in my late teens.

#35

I had just gotten back to the high school after a state dance competition. It was 2am and I’d been up since 4 that morning, so I was extremely tired. I only had to drive 7 miles from the school to my house, and it was a very rural area, so I figured I’d be fine, but I was exhausted. About 1 mile in, I started to see shadowy people walking on highway. Scared the c**p out of me.

The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed that morning. I went outside and found my car in the driveway, turned off but still in drive, with the keys in the ignition. I still don’t know exactly how I got home. That said, I am known for sleepwalking. Yikes!

#36

Driving on one of the reservations in New Mexico and came across a car completely stopped in the left lane. We slow down to pass the car and see the victim of a hit and run in the road in front of the stopped car (it wasn’t them, they stopped when they came across the body). We pulled over, my Dad and husband got out to see if they could do anything. Unfortunately he was long gone and others had called the police. We didn’t witness the accident and couldn’t help so we left so that we wouldn’t be in the way. The worst was that we still had a few hours left of driving that night. It was super foggy and I was terrified someone was going to jump out into the road from out of the fog.

#37

When I was in High school we used to drive out to this graveyard outside Hobart in Indiana. Middle of nowhere and at night it would be dark as hell. There was an angel statue in the middle and if you got close to it, the temperature was supposed to drop. (It DID seem like this happened but I’m sure its just the atmosphere.

Anyway, like 10 of us go, get scared, walk around, have a good time. We leave (we had 2 cars). I’m driving the second one and being dumbass 17 year olds, I’m following the girl driving the car in front of me pretty close. It’s a backroad, not well lit, no other cars in sight. It’s late as hell.

All the sudden she swerves all the way into the other lane and panicking, I swerve too thinking there’s a deer. Nope. Not a deer. There is a f*****g tombstone in the middle of the goddamn road. Sounds like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard but I swear it. Listen, I don’t believe in ghosts, don’t believe in heaven or hell, none of that…but I know what I saw. 9 other people saw the same thing. We talked about it recently for the first time in years. I think we all kind of mentally blocked it out.

Edit:spelling.

#38

Im going to preface by saying we were all on acid but…An old lady wearing all white walking down a very wooded road with a very old cemetery near by…I thought I hallucinated it till someone else in the car asked if we saw it too. All 4 of us saw it. The old lady was so out of place and we literally spent the whole night driving up and down that one road never seeing her until it seemed like she appeared out of nowhere.

#39

This didn’t happen at night, closer to the evening, but I’m still not quite sure how to justify what had happened.

I live on a backroad in the country, so when I need to head to town, I almost always end up having to pass by an Amish carriage. It’s a common occurrence, and they’re usually friendly and pull as much to the side as they can to let cars pass them by, but this one was going unbelievably slow. So I came up behind them, checked to make sure it was clear, passed by, and I very vividly remember looking at them as I passed in my rear view, looking ahead to the road, and then looking back in my rear view to see that nothing was there. No horse, no carriage, no roads to turn on nor hills to cut off my sight. One second they were there, the next they just weren’t.

Not sure if I’m going insane or if this belongs in a spooky subreddit, but I’m still a little creeped out by it everytime I drive by that spot.

#40

Me (f24 or so at the time) and 3 of my girlfriends were driving from Sydney city to a rural country house for a chill weekend back in about 2006. Everything was normal, we got more and more rural and deeper into the countryside towards the end, it was dark, the road was almost invisible, so twisty and turny and we were all getting more and more anxious as we didn’t really know where this house was and it felt like we were driving into nowhere. Totally isolated. The suddenly as we slowly twisted and turned down this black road we could barely see, this haunting creepy horror-like music started playing from NOWHERE. Like haunting organ funeral music. Radio was off, it was no ones phone, it seemed like it was inside the car. If lasted about 1 minute and ended. We all heard it and it was creepy as f**k. To this day I don’t know what it was.

#41

Years ago, my then boyfriend was taking me home around 11p.m. We’re on a tiny back road on the middle of nowhere, known for little to no cell service.

Oil light comes on, car starts sputtering. We pull off. Get out, start walking around to get cell signal, and nada.

Out of nowhere we see headlights and what appears to be a cop car from a few towns over pull up. Very nice guy (unusual for the cops around here), asks us what’s wrong and immediately says not to worry. He pulled out 2 quarts of the oil we needed from his trunk, and instructed us to get out of the cold and in to the car

Boyfriend and I are talking amongst ourselves in the car with the hood still up, when we realize we haven’t seen him come back to his car that was parked across from us.

And then we realize there is no car.

Or a cop.

But there was a single leather glove laying across the valve cover, and enough oil to register on the dip stick.

Thanks Ghost Cop.

#42

My young wife and I were moving between cities. We’d spent all day loading a large 16-ft. trailer with all our belonging, and began the drive across the state just before dark. I’d borrowed a large pickup truck to pull the heavy trailer to our destination, so the combination of this truck and trailer (fully loaded) was VERY heavy, and pretty slow and cumbersome to start and stop.

We were traveling along a very desolate stretch of highway at around midnight, driving roughly 60-65 mph, when I see what looks like a couple of deer walking out into the road ahead of us…maybe 200 yds ahead? My wife is asleep on the seat next to me. I begin to slow down a bit and lay on the horn to scare the animals off the road before we reach them. Where we live this is a pretty common occurrence, so I’m not slamming on the brakes cause I expect these deer will move well before we get there. They usually do.

Suddenly I realize, as these “deer” come clearly into the light of our headlights, that these aren’t deer! It’s two men, and they’re trying to stop us! It’s only a two lane highway, and one man is standing in the middle of our lane, and the other is standing in the middle of the opposite lane. By now there’s absolutely NO WAY I’m going to be able to stop this rig, and they aren’t leaving me anywhere to go. But they don’t realize I CAN’T stop!

I stomp on the brake pedal, and continue to blare the horn over and over again as fast as possible, hopefully getting them to move. I’m fighting to keep the truck and trailer from jackknifing, brakes locked up and tires screaming, but these guys are NOT moving, and I’m still going 35-40 mph when I reach them.

The only thing I can do at this point is try to thread the needle between them, so I center the truck in the middle of the roadway and hope neither of them tries to close that small window. At the very last second, the guy who’s standing in the middle of our lane jumps out of the way. He was so close I was seriously worried our big rear view mirror might hit him in the head! I missed hitting him by mere inches.

This all happened in a span of about 5-8 seconds. There was no car anywhere on the road, we were way out in the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty obvious, based on their behavior, that these two guys were up to something potentially nefarious. I didn’t stop. I’d come WAY too damned close to k*lling these guys. My heart was literally in my throat, and it was pounding so hard I was having trouble breathing.

I didn’t even realize until afterward that when I’d slammed on the brakes my wife had slid off the seat and onto the floor (this was before seat belts were mandatory). She groggily gets up off the floor and asks me, “What the hell happened??” She’d missed the entire ordeal.

/ Certainly not “unexplainable”, but it scared the S**T out of me! I’ve never come so close to k*lling someone in my life, and I truly hope I never do again!

#43

Driving aimlessly around at two or three in the morning on a minor highway – almost no other cars around because it’s a weeknight.

Suddenly my headlights illuminate something on the median and it looks for all intents and purposes to be a body wrapped in a sheet.

I should’ve just pulled over then backed up, but I decided to take the next exit, turn around and come back, which I did but the exits were far apart and it took me longer to get back than I would’ve liked.

I ended up passing it again so only got another quick glance (and it still looked like a sheet-wrapped body), but pulled over onto the median and parked my truck and started to walk back towards it when I heard rustling in the trees (median had trees and scrub bushes). I’m sure it was just an animal, but it was a loud rustling so I just ran to my car and sped off.

I kept looking in the newspaper (pre-internet) to see if I saw any mention of it but never saw anything.

#44

I once saw something late at night in the headlights on a dark country road which was sandy coloured, about the size of a small cat with about twenty feet of tail following it, running really quickly, real wtf stuff.

some thirty years pass, and then I find out on reddit what it was.

Someone posted a video of a pale rat with lots of smaller rats all holding onto each others tails and running like that.

#45

My sister and I stopped along Interstate 5 in Oregon in a super random countryside pull out to check something in the car and I look over at her and she’s staring wide-eyred at the door behind me. I turn around just in time to see a hippy guy (probably just homeless guys) reach for the unlocked back door. I screamed “Peel out!!”.and she did covering him with gravel. But c’mon he wasn’t even hitchhiking. He appeared out of a ditch. So we are grown and screaming our damn asses off which turns into uproarious laughter. Just a bunch super scared emotions. Poor guy (if he wasn’t a k*ller).

#46

Oh man i work night shift so im driving at funky hours all the time this is my time to shine.

So one time i got sent home early from work (was sick) and i decided to take the longer and slower but safer easier way home (normal way takes me 25-30 min but depending on the lights this way is like 40 min) so i didnt have to concentrate on the road as much. I was going through the town, managed to make all the lights so far, its like 3:15am so noones on the road or anything, cool misty night and as usually i get a red light so i slow down and stop. I know this light is going to take a while so i whip out my phone to find a new song and as im scrolling through spotify to find one i hear a bang on my passenger side door. Scared the s**t out of me and i dropped my phone on the floor and looked over and at first theres nothing at the window but then slowly a middle aged drunk man rises from the bottom of the window smiling like a creep and just stops in the middle of the window and slowly starts tilting his head side to side. Needless to say thats the only time ive ever ran a red light and touched the redline on my car.

Another time i was taking my normal way home, i normally finish at 6 but schduleing issues at work i got sent home at 4am, its around 4:20am now, im doing like 125kph on the back streets heading towards my house, high beams on and music blaring having a grand old time. Come round the corner and its quite a long road but up the road a small ways i see someone in the middle of the road wearing a white hoodie so i flick my high beams off and start slowing down thinking he was gonna move. I stopped say 2 or 3 meters away from “him” and see that its a white sheet drapped over a standing stick thing with a piece of paper attacted in big bold writing saying “Come up close, Have a look”. Now im not sure if it was some teenagers having some fun or if when i got out i was going to get jumped but not being an idiot, I very quickly floored it around the sheet and floored it home. Got home and made triple sure everything was locked.

I have a few more but those 2 are the major ones that jump to mind. Also i am terrible at spelling and at grammar so im sorry for that =(.

#47

The scariest thing I’ve seen was another driver try and drive straight through a roundabout and hit the sign that said “roundabout”. It didn’t compute at first—very surreal.

#48

Bright lights… I have astigmatism and get halo’s on bright lights really bad. When going through construction or something and there are a lot of headlights coming at me it’s damn near impossible to see the road. Scares the s**t out of me sometimes.

#49

My family used to go out on little drives together sometimes for fun in the spring to watch all the run off water from the snow melt. We live in the rural prairies of Canada. Were on a back road slowly winding the edge of a prickly hay field with a tiny trickling ditch river beside us, its the golden hour, the returning geese are dotting the water gathered in the fields for miles. A scene Van Gogh might wanna paint, ya know? Anyways, we’re driving along when this enormous moose thunders out of nowhere at top speed right in front of our car. She heads through the field right beside us and straight toward some water that had pooled at bottom of a little hill in the field. Very wide puddle, but looked maybe a foot deep at most. She made it a few feet in to the water then suddenly fell into an unsuspecting abyss below and vanished completely.

I don’t even know how long it was but it felt like ages, she eventually emerged ~40ft away on the opposite side of the “puddle” and kept on running like she didn’t just slip in to mariannas trench.

Its about 6ft from hoof to shoulder on a female moose. Theyre absolutely huge, larger than horses and she completely vanished. Ill never forget it.

#50

Driving down a Michigan country road at about 2-3am. See something in the road up ahead, was pretty sure it was some kind of trailer or wagon or something. By the time I get up to it, I realize it’s not a trailer, It’s a f*****g horse, just standing in the road. He watched me drive by him really slow. Didn’t move, just stood there. I was going to call animal control, but I figured f**k it, let him have his fun.

#51

I was driving home one night after working a 18 hour day it was brutal but I was so tired because I’d also had a long week I was having hallucinations I parked up in the side of the road by some big warehouse and fell asleep I woke up with the green neon sign outside the warehouse flickering I then thought I saw a group of men running towards my car so I started with he car a took off quick as I’m driving again I feel like someone is hiding in my backseat so I brake really hard to try and send them crashing forward into the front of the car and as I did this I realized it was just a jacket on the back seat.

#52

My family and I took a trip to Australia when I was 9, and a distinct memory I have is when we were driving between a forest area and fields at around 11 pm. We spent a little too long walking around Gold Coast and got held up, so we were late to our Airbnb. My sister and I were asleep in the backseat, and due to me being a light sleeper, I woke up when I heard my mom saying “What the hell”. Got up, looked out the window like my curious 9-year-old self, and I watched as we drove past roughly 5 people standing on the side of the road in a row, staring at us as we passed. I was creeped out, but still looked through the back windscreen, and there were more people on the other side of the road. I couldn’t see clearly at that point, but I assume there was another 5 people on the other side. It was the first really unexplainable thing I’ve seen in my life.

#53

I had recently got followed to work for 30 minutes just so they could yell at me and phone the police on me for cutting them off.

2 weeks later I was being followed and no matter how often I changed directions they followed me. I now have ptsd of being followed so I was panicking.

#54

Me and my mate where out bush in his car just doing what Ozzie teens do when we get our license and a really secluded dirt track in the bush and flog the car for a few hours. We were probably about an hour from any main roads or presence of other people other than the dirt track and we saw some guy in a yellow Ute digging a hole off the side of the track we slowed down and he looked up and my mate just hit the gas and we teared off down the road, ended up coming to a dead end probably 10 minutes later and had to head back, no sign of old man or yellow Ute. Was almost 5 years ago now and it still pops up into my head

Edit: spelling.

#55

Driving west on I-80 from Iowa City to Newton, I saw lightning strike the corn field I was driving past. It was one of those moments where you realize just how dangerous something is.

Still not the scariest.

Coming home one night on some residential streets, I get stopped by a red light. I had my hand out the window and not a care in the world. Suddenly, I felt fur in my left hand. Somehow I didn’t see it when I pulled up but I must have pulled up next to a friendly deer. We have a lot out here but they never really come into the city. I don’t think it knew my hand was out the window and he was just checking out the car, either way it scared both of us. I could hear his hooves running on the street for blocks.