The woods are a scary place—so many spooky sounds and so few 7/11's. As a city dweller, I try to stay as close to concrete, street lights and consumerism as possible. But even people who spend a big chunk of their lives in the woods run in to some scary, creepy, unexplainable sh*t while out in the wilderness.
Rangers, hunters, hikers and forest workers are sharing their scariest experiences in the woods that they "still can't explain." After reading these 23 stories, you may want to avoid forests, woods, and even trees altogether. Just to be safe.
1.) From redink85:
We have a camp that we visit during the hunting months and about every other weekend in between that. To get to our camp, you have to turn off of a major road onto a gravel road, drive about a mile, then turn onto another gravel road for about a half mile. It’s set between a few other camps, plus some residents that live out there. It’s quiet, for the most part. There are some coyotes and bobcats. Bobcats are the worst due to their terrible scream. It sounds like a woman crying for help. There has also been a black panther and wild dogs. 2013 we were at the camp for Thanksgiving. We hunted, fished, cooked, drank, all that good camp stuff. On night, we’re sitting around a fire, swapping funny stories and just listening to the silence of the woods. As we’re talking, we all hear, “Help me!”. At first, we thought it was a bobcat. We listened some more and heard it again. It was a man’s voice yelling “help me!” repeatedly. Now, our first instinct was to grab our guns. Second was to go towards the voice, BUT you never know what you will encounter in the woods. It was dark and cold. The hunters knew the area very well. We called the police, and explained everything to the responding officers. The weird part was that we NEVER once heard it while the officers were with us. Not once. The officers left and we heard the man again, repeating “help me”. About half an hour later, the officers came back and we didn’t hear any call for help. Again, silence. We all decided it was best to go inside our camp for the night. We never did find out anything. I’ve only been back to the camp once since then. Really freaked me out.
2.) From canIkick1it:
Kinda creepy thing happened to me when I was a student forester this summer. So, the forest I was working in was about 20 kms from the nearest town which contained around 1200 people and we usually set out for what ever task we have to do in the forest at around 7:00am. So we are at the forest at around 7:30am and we are about 12 kms up the road when we turn a corner very slowly and see what I initially thought to be a weird looking bush or statue but it was in fact a person, sitting on a carved out stump on the side of the road, just sitting there. What really threw me off was the fact that this person had a parka on and a balaclava underneath it IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER. We drove by this person real slow and he lifted a hand to wave slowly as we drove past and it was just super creepy. Never saw them again after that but it did make going out on excursions a little more uneasy sometimes when alone.
3.) From Chokelz:
We always built a tiki house in our woods, (just some normal kids) and had loads of fun. But every week when we came back, it was destroyed and we were sad as hell, and always built a new one. One day we saw a guy in a black hoodie taking our sticks apart. We never came back
4.) From AmySaysGetBent:
Not my story, but my younger sisters (early 20s). She was in Colorado last year and went hiking with her friend. The plan was to hike up the mountain, stop midway and camp, then finish the hike the next morning. They started their hike and stopped for camp midway. She said it started dumping rain that night which meant the top would most likely be snow. The next morning they continued their hike, but it started getting complicated. Her friend only wore Chaco sandals and not proper hiking boots as they didn’t expect the snow. They stopped at a creek and were deciding if they wanted to turn back on account they weren’t prepared properly when they heard a faint “help me”. They both stood still. They heard it again. They decided to follow up the creek to the woman’s voice. They got to a clearing that was covered in snow and found a woman laying in it in basic athletic clothing (leggings, light pull over jacket, and athletic shoes). My sister said her legs were swollen, discolored and had nasty cuts on them. My sister asked her how long she had been out there and the woman said only a few hours. My sister was like okay we need to get you down this mountain. The woman was like “no I need to go up the mountain that’s where my car is parked”. My sister was like, no, there is no driving access at the top of the mountain which was a sign that this woman was confused. They get her down the mountain and my sister just kept saying how confused this woman was. They get to the bottom and they find this woman’s car. My sister couldn’t get cell service to call 911 during this btw. Anyways, my sister tells this woman she’s going to drive her to the hospital but the woman is standing strong that she would just like to go back to her bed and breakfast. My sister takes her there while driving this woman’s car. Once the woman is at the bed and breakfast she thanks them and goes in. My sister spoke to the owners and was like you have to call a medic, she is severely confused and not acting normal. They call a medic and transport her to a hospital. Turns out this woman is from Chicago, has low blood pressure and it was her first time ever hiking a mountain - she was also alone. She had passed out during her hike, then it dumped snow on her. She was hypothermic and only thought she’d been out for a few hours - she was out overnight in the dark, cold and alone. I couldn’t imagine the terror she must have felt. Anyways, my sister went and saw her at the hospital and the woman thanked her for saving her life. They still lightly keep in touch.
5.) From rocketotter109:
Not my story, but my dad's. When my dad was in his 20s, he was staying with my mom at a small cabin in the woods of Colorado. It was fairly remote (there was another cabin about a mile away and a camp ground maybe 3 miles down the valley.) Late one afternoon, he was out fishing on a nearby river by himself. As the light started fading, he decided to call it a day and head back to the cabin for dinner. As he was walking back through the woods, he got an eerie feeling that he was being watched, but he couldn't see anyone or anything. He kept walking back,and then suddenly he heard a stick break behind him. He stopped, looking back for the source of the sound, but still didn't see anything. He nervously kept walking back, a little quicker, and then heard another stick break, whirls around and still - nothing. This happens like three or four times, but every time he stopped to listen and look, there was total silence and nothing else moving. By the time he finally made it back to the cabin, it was nearly dark. He never did find out what was following him, but whatever it was left him alone after that. His best guess was a mountain lion stalking him or something. Really unsettling though.
6.) From hmfiddlesworth:
Friend and I were hiking in the woods. He was at the camp and I went to check on things about half a mile away. Suddenly, as if someone flipped a switch, the woods became silent. No wind, no russling leaves, no birds.. Just the most eery silence I've experienced. After a few minutes, it suddenly went back to normal forest noises. Thinking I must have had a seizure or temporary deafness or something I hurry back to camp, only to see friend standing there with a confused/scared look on his face. I must have had a similar look because he immidiately asked if I heard the silence. We tried to come up with an explanation, but absolute silence in the woods seems impossible. Even more so that it was so sudden.
7.) From UintaGirl:
I've lived on the high dessert for most of my life (6000' above sea level if you're wondering). I was out riding my horse alone in the absolute middle of BFE in the Badlands (no trees, and hardly any brush to speak of so sounds carry a long way and there is nowhere to hide for long) when all of a sudden his ears perk up. I feel my skin start to crawl like we're being watched. My normally mellow gelding, starts to panic. I start to feel really dizzy, and my horse stumbles. I black out.
I come to an hour or so later about 3 Miles away from the inciting incident still on my horse. He is frothing with sweat and shaking all over. I'm still not sure what happened. I had plenty of water and snacks. It was 65ish Degrees and breezy, so I don't believe weather or dehydration/hunger were a factor. I have never before or after had a fainting spell, and that was the most reliable, quiet horse I've ever owned.
I now have a serious case of the heebie jeebies again just thinking about it.
8.) From Cidermonk:
Couple good friends of mine fight fires and in WA state summers business is usually booming. This year a fair sized crew of about ten of them are miles and miles deep into the Cascades doing dig lines. I'm talking like 60 miles away from anything, middle of nowhere. As they're hiking through they come to a clearing and there's two landed Blackhawk helicopters and about 7 fully armed military personnel. They all point their rifles at the fire crew and demand to know what they are doing there. My friend tells them they're doing fire digs and they're scheduled to be up there. They are told to turn around and forget that they saw anything up there. My friend says But this is government work, we have to do this, this is our job. Military guy says Not today, you're done, get the fuck out of here now. Some serious Chronicle type shit. I've never wanted to know so badly about what the hell was going in out there
9.) From EtherGorilla:
Mine was not of monsters but of humans.
Tldr at bottom.
My friends and I were high in the woods deep in the Sierra Nevadas in the California back country and decided to travel a few miles off a path to reach a river and shoot at targets with our 22. The path is littered with deer bones and claw marks from bears so we're freaking out a bit but finally make it to where we set up camp.
I notice off in the distance about a half mile upstream the river there are two men walking towards us in the exact direction we are firing our gun. I yell at the guys for them to stop shooting and we just watch these men, wide-eyed and in their late 20's and early 30's walking quickly alongside the river when suddenly they both decide to jump in.
I should say at this point that the river is moving very quickly and could easily sweep you under and is definitely not safe for a casual swim. We watch as both the men are swept away towards us downstream. One of my friends, we'll call him Mike, decides to be brave and get close to the edge and extend a piece of wood for them to grab as they're about to pass us. Both the men latch on and Mike is the hero pulling them to shore.
When everyone catches their breath we asked the men what they were doing out here as it's super remote and they were at least 3 or 4 miles from the nearest trail and why they both jumped in the deadly river they give us short answers like "Oh we were just having fun boys" and "Just free swimming the river!" while they're leering at us.
Immediately the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and every fiber in my body tells me they mean us harm. We tell them we're going to head back to the trail and they say they're coming with us. Given that we're so far off from civilization and these guys are clearly high on something and a danger to themselves we reluctantly agree to allow them to follow us.
It was the most quiet hike of my life. I felt them trying to feel out if they could take us in a fight. There were three of us and two of them and we had a 22 but were young squirrelly adults. I don't know how to explain it but the hike was us constantly positioning against each other with body language without ever directly fighting. They would get close to the gun and try to both be near it then we would counter by getting between them and the gun as naturally as possible while hiking up a path that was littered in bear claw marks and dung. We finally make it to the car and they decide we weren't suitable targets and moved on. No idea what two random guys were doing risking their life in a freezing cold raging river in the Sierra Nevadas, or why they felt the need to size up if they could attack three random teens but I'm glad nothing happened that day.
Tldr: went hiking in the woods with friends as teens. Almost shot some random crazies. Crazies fall into river and we save them. Then crazies proceed to position themselves to fight us. Eventually get away.
10.) From addelorenzi:
Not anything like this myself, but a friend told me this story.
So he goes with a buddy to hike a trail near our town. Northern Washington state, so lots of woods and trees. When they get to the trailhead, there is one other car there, and he remembers seeing a person in that car. The person in the car was just staring at them, with what he described as a really white unchanging face. He kept staring right at them without trying to hide it or look away. My friend got creeped out, and decided to leave.
In the next week or two after that, a couple of hikers and a ranger turned up dead in that same area. Pretty sure they caught the guy, but I don't remember if his photo was posted.
Super creepy.
11.) From Ankeneering:
I was driving from Tucson to Denver in the middle of the night. Got tired, was pulling off and crawl in a sleeping bag in the desert far away from the two lane blacktop I was on (highway 666 btw) (it’s since been renamed because everybody was stealing the signs. Anyway pull off the road, onto a dirt road and then a little further. Kind of hid the truck behind some vegetation and toss down a sleeping bar and pad in the middle of pitch black huge star New Mexico night. No one around, no light, nothing at all.... visibility for miles. I’m completely fucking alone in pitch black nothing and getting wound down in my eyes are getting droopy. Then I hear it. It sounds goofy to say but it’s the same Indian music you’d hear in old black and white westerns. Native music, voices and a drum. I literally think I’m dreaming and when it starts I’m fucking petrified because that noise just appearing out of nothing simply put ice in my veins. Relax a little and unfreeze, and try to be logical about what I’m hearing, which has no physical manifestation of its origin... so..thinking logically... now instead of pure panic..... I could be on the reservation at this point. Perhaps it’s coming from behind a previously unseen hill... I get up, look around. I don’t see anything at all. It kind of comes and goes in volume. Doesn’t seem to be coming from a direction. I have no clue. I looked for evidence and didn’t find any. Crawled back in the bag because I’d been driving for hours, and they sang all night. Logic tells me it had to be a group of people I didn’t see. But I looked, and there were no ancillary noises like talking or stopping or anything. Just that Indian drum. And the “hiyaya HI Ya....” What was originally terrifying became calming and I ended up sleeping fantastically. Later learned that was a terrible stretch of road for very bad things to happen, it sort of lived up to its 666 moniker for wrecks and bad shit occurring apparently.
12.) From Ricky_RZ:
I did a basics of survival course a while back.
While walking through forests in the middle of nowhere, I would often hear a loud trumpety sound. Kinda like a trumpet some days and a grinding sound on other days.
Not sure what it was, but it was super loud but there was nothing nearby that could make a sound like that
13.) From TalesFromThe:
Backwoods hiking/camping trip up in Maine. Trail intersected overgrown logging road. Checked topo map. Saw logging toad lead to isolated pond. Hiked to pond. Found small clearing. Perfect spot to camp. Went to bed shortly after sunset (8:30pm-ish) woke up around 1:30am to distant but loud noises coming from all angles around us. Up the logging road both directions, across the pond and in the woods. Deep bass-y groans and hoots, occasionally hitting higher pitched noted. Been in the woods for most of my adult life. Have come in contact with just about all the larger mammals of the North East and have never heard those noises before. Haven’t heard them again either. Will never forget that sound.
14.) From Turd_Fergusons_:
About 20 years ago I had just finished my degree and was bummed because I couldn't find a job. A former roommate/good friend and I went on an overnight backpack trip near Burr Oak State Park in Southeast Ohio. About 2 am we were awoken in our tent by the sound of dozens of horses being ridden all around us. We could hear muted conversation, harness jingling, hoofs clopping and we could feel it shaking the ground. We laid in our tent and the sound just kept on, like a whole convoy was passing right beside us. After a few minutes we unzipped the tent and the sounds immediately ceased and nothing was there. It was freaky, we were afraid they were going to ride over us it was so intense. I have no idea who or what it was but we're camped on a trail that had been used by John Morgan Hunts Confederate raiders during the civil war. Not a logical explanation but it was deafening there were so many horses. I can still hear men's voices murmering as they rode by. Next morning not a single hoofprint to be found.
15.) From jankDemes:
I spent a few nights in a lean-to. I fit snugly inside, underneath a widowmaker, falling asleep atop a bed of pine foliage.
In the middle of the night I hear and see this long black appendage impact, and then slide down the tarp. I had no weapons, save for the hatchet, and I wouldn't make it out undetected so I watched the entrance intensely for a few hours. Turns out I had leaned my bow against the shelter, and the wind blew it over in the night.
16.) From Historical-Regret:
I've spent a lot of time in fairly wild places and never had an incident that I couldn't explain.
Doesn't make them much less scary, though. When you figure out it's a cougar, bear, moose, or strange human, it's not like you exhale and relax.
Scariest moment for me, to date, was the grizzly that was circling our camp in the dusk at about 20 meters. Packed my family into the car as fast as we could move but it wouldn't have been fast enough if the bear had attacked. I really regret it - I feel that I failed as a parent, because it's only luck that nothing horrible happened. I don't think I'll ever forget seeing its green eyes bobbing and swaying in my headlamp. It briefly rushed our vehicle as we left, too. Scary as fuck.
Edit: The closest I ever came to an inexplicable moment was when I was walking though trail-less black spruce up north in the fall and suddenly hit a wall of odor the likes of which I'd never smelled before. Stopped me in my tracks. Some instinct told me that it was a bull moose, and sure enough, in about 20 more meters, there was a clearing with a massive bull. It was rutting season so I got the hell out.
17.) From n0bel:
I was once canoeing the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. These aren't your normal backyard ponds. The boundary waters are thousands of enormous lakes interconnected with each other (think mini-great lakes). We had been canoeing and camping along the lakes for about a week at this point. We didn't really have an itinerary, just planned to boat and camp, fish, and live off the land two weeks. We had a GPS and a sat phone to call a helicopter for pickup whenever we were done.
Anyway, about a week in and we were set to canoe a few hours to the next lake. An hour or so in and we are in the center of a extremely long and narrow lake. Unfortunately, a storm started to blow in and the waves on the lake swelled to 2+ feet. Too much for our dinky canoes. We pull off to a random clearing on the shore and setup camp in rush to avoid being totally thrashed by a rainstorm. We just setup camp and hunker down for the night.
By the next morning it had cleared up. We started walking up the coast of the lake about 200 feet from our camp looking for a good fishing spot. What we actually found was another campsite. However, it was ABSOLUTELY wrecked. Trash strewn everywhere, tent collapsed and torn, clothes on the ground. At first we were just like disgusted like what assholes did this? or left their shit out to be bear food?
The more we looked around though, the weirder things seemed though. For one, their garbage was still hoisted into a tree to keep it safe from bears, but the whole bag was ripped open despite being 30 feet in the air. Second, literally everything except the canoes were still at the campsite. Clothes, packs, food, rope, pans, like a serious set of hiking equipment. Enough for 2 or 3 people. Half of it was trashed and torn open, mostly the packs, tent, and clothes. The other half was totally untouched but thrown on the ground. Like somebody NOPE'd the hell out of there in nothing but their long johns ditching hundreds of dollars of gear in the process. We waited a couple hours and eventually called it back to our helicopter crew-- but they hadn't been aware of anybody else or gotten any distress calls. We eventually just left everything and moved camp. Everybody was pretty upset by it and a day or two later we ended the whole trip early because it seemed like nobody wanted to be out anymore.
It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. First thought was bear attack, but there was food left uneaten, and I've seen bear attacks on camps before, but nothing like this. Bears rip open packs and go after food, and are generally pretty easy to scare away. What still sticks with me is why all their clothes and packs were still there with half being totally destroyed and half being untouched. I still don't get it.
I've done a lot of other camping and hiking, rafting and biking, all around the country and I've never had any other weird experiences like that.
18.) From The_Random_Persons:
Stumbled across some some kind of...witch circle? Backpacking off trail in the Colorado Mountains. Cobblestone circle, bones hanging from the trees, burned out candles and creepy pictures in a tree trunk that my family didn't let me get a good look at before they dragged me away. Never did figure out exactly what was going on there. That was a fun trip.
19.) From thegirloverthere007:
We have dense woods behind my house, and one evening I hear my dog barking up a storm. I ran out side to see what it was, and near our grape vines stood this wolf-like creature that was about the size of a huge bear. I freaked out when it made eye contact with me. It just stood there, about 10 yards away from me, just staring. I grabbed my dog and ran inside to tell my parents. They wrote it off as my imagination since I was about 10-12 at the time, but ever since then when I go into the woods it feels like I'm being watched.
20.) From wine-dine-and-69:
I was out hunting with my older brother and his best friend a few years back, want to say 2016.
We had been walking along a trail for a good 5kms at least. On one side of this trail is a decent drop and then a river and on the other side is a decent uphill section and a huge pine forest. It was about 1am by this point and we were just sort of quietly talking to each other when a horrific noise split the air. We all froze and looked at each other with the expression on our faces doing all the work. “What the fuck was that.” We knew it came from up in the pine forest and where we are there aren’t any big predators or really anything out there that we should be “scared” of. So we shouldered our rifles and headed up to find out exactly what made this sound.
I wish we hadn’t. We got to a clearing and the trees were thinning out and my brother flicked on his spotlight. Big bright fucker, excellent range. Way up ahead of us was the strangest looking figure I’ve seen. Like the general shape of a wolf but just... off. It was just stopped on the edge of another tree line further up the hill looking right at us. Pacing side to side. My brothers friend and I had our rifles trained on it trying to get a good look. We couldn’t count out the fact it was another hunters dog that was lost so we (against my gut feeling) went up after it. As we went up after it it became increasingly obvious this thing was watching us very intently. The closer we got, more we realised this was definitely not a hunters dog. It was big. Really big and just the way it moved and it’s entire demeanour was just so unsettling. We kept two rifles on it and one the opposite direction, slowly made our way back down and haven’t been back there since.
Don’t really talk about it either as we still don’t know what we saw and people usually jump to the ‘Bullshit’ conclusion because like I said before where we live there’s not really any big predators.
TL;DR went hunting, saw what I can only describe as some kind of werewolf looking fucker.
21.) From xrblizzardx:
Hiking part of the NCT north of Grand Rapids, MI. We hiked around 25 miles in a day and by the time we made camp I was in a huge amount of pain (hadn’t hiked for almost a year so going that hard was a mistake). I was starting to get sick and couldn’t get warm no matter how I layered up. I barely ate and then went to sleep. I woke up in the very early morning to slow footsteps walking around camp. They were pretty heavy and lumbering so I knew it was a bear. I didn’t dare move and tried to slow my breathing as much as possible to stay quiet. After around 20 minutes it started moving away again and I passed back out. When I woke up the shrubbery around camp was disturbed and a friend had also woken up and heard the same thing. She was somewhat new to hiking though and had no idea what it was so she was a little spooked when I told her. We got the fuck outta there as soon as we could.
22.) From LackadaisiesForDays:
Inventory arborist tech here. I've found a cow tongue sliced open down the middle, wrapped in different vibrantly colored bands, and stabbed to the trunk of an oak tree with a knife.
23.) From ThatDamZoomer:
TL;DR at bottom.
I‘ve got one. When I was in Boy Scouts, my troop would always go to a camp called Camp Tahquitz for our yearly summer camp. That specific year, they had had abnormal bear activity in and around the camp. It was a pretty sizable camp, but was still way out in the boonies, so an encounter with a chipmunk was just as common as it would be with a California black bear. Wildlife management was done by some crazy old Gunnery Sergeant that we called Gunny, so you can see the situations you might find yourself in.
So anyway, I was tenting with my friend who had just joined the troop, lets call him James. So James and I are sleeping in our tent in the middle of the night, probably around 1 or 2 in the morning, when I was abruptly awoken by something. Everything is dead silent, aside from a plasticky creaking sound. Then I see it, right above my head. Something was pushing the tent in so hard that it began to cave in right above my head, like if someone was leaning into it with all of their weight. Except, these tents were relatively strong, you (I mean, I could as a preteen) could jump on them and you would just bounce right off.
So, being the scared little thirteen year old that I was, I began to smack whatever it was with all of my might whilst simultaneously clubbing James with my fist to get him to wake up. Mind you, James is an incredibly deep sleeper, so this in effect does nothing. Whoever or whatever it is is leaning so hard that it is almost touching my head when James wakes up from the nightmare that he was having and let out a blood curdling ten-year-old-girl-being-murdered-in-the-woods type scream. Whatever it was stopped leaning on the tent and vanished silently into the night.
So, for a few years, James (who has no recollection of the event whatsoever) and I always assumed it was a bear after the meds in my daypack. But, after staffing at the camp and getting to know the lore of the grounds a little better, I think something else might have been afoot. There have been many strange happenings in and around Camp Tahquitz, both paranormal and just normally unexplained. Theres the usual Bigfoot and ghost stories, but older scouts and even administrative higher-ups claim to have seen things. Claims of wendigo-skinwalker hybrids (things that look like both, not actual hybrids), some dead guy called Dragthump, and a bunch of Native American myths (Tahquitz has the biggest and most active Native American program West of Oklahoma).
The fact that there were no tears in the tent flap from the bear claws, we were the furthest away from the bear box, the fact that there was absolutely no sound from the supposed bear (black bears make a heck of a ruckus), and the fact that it was just persistently leaning into the tent instead of just clawing at it like most bears leads me to believe that it was no Yogi or Smokey. It just didn’t behave like bears do, and even if it was some older scouts attempting to play a joke on us, they wouldn't have been heavy enough to lean that far in on the tent and probably would have erupted into laughter right afterward. Plus, my troop isn’t like that. Its full of a bunch of mild mannered city boys, perfect Eagle Scout material, (of which I am one). Everything just seems so off.
I don’t claim to know what it was (hence the unexplained part). Let me guys know if something similar happened to you.
TL;DR: Strange thing attempted to break into my tent in the night, thought it was a bear, but I don’t think so anymore.
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