If you think going to work is scary, imagine working in a graveyard or cemetery. Sure, the guy in the next cubicle breathes loudly and your manager discussing the weather, but at least your co-workers are alive.
Over on AskReddit, where no question is too dark to ask, people who work in graveyards and cemeteries are answering the question: "what strange and scary stuff have you witnessed?"
These 19 creepy responses will make you grateful to work a boring desk job among the living:
1.) From ullabr:
I work at a graveyard, and I just have one thing to say. Plastic.
Here in Norway graves are protected by law for 20 years, but after that the spots can be "reused". Usually a grave is fine to reopen after 20 years - the body is supposed to be decomposed and pretty much gone. Now back to plastic:
Between the 50s and 80s it was common here to be buried in plastic, to minimise "smell and leakage". I'm sure they thought it was a good idea back then, but once we started reusing graves in Norway we realised it is a curse. A lot of bodies are wrapped in plastic, and I've myself been part of what was supposed to be a burial at a reused site. The body was about 50 or 60 years old, and should be basically gone, but nope it was not, the plastic wrap it was covered by kept the body from decomposing, and it's basically just been marinated it its own juices for 50/60 years. The smell was awful, the sight was even worse.
I'm sure this is not the kind of story you wanted, but it's honestly the bost horrific and bizarre thing I've ever been part of.
2.) From Back2Bach:
In the cemetery mausoleum-chapel where I occasionally play the organ for funerals, vandals had broken in the night before a service.
They smashed several crypt covers (probably with sledge hammers), exposing the remains of those that had been entombed therein.
It was an eerie atmosphere to hold a funeral service that morning with such desecration in plain sight.
3.) From Xaixiu:
Not really a cemetery experience, but it was still pretty freaky. My grandparents live out in the middle of nowhere pretty much and is surrounded by woods. On their property, there was a whole family that owned my grandparents property before them. From what I was told they were killed or something like that.
A few years ago, when I was still living with my grandparents, a relative that was related to the dead family came up to the property and wanted to remove the bodies from the land. My grandpa was extremely happy about it because he wanted to expand the house but couldn't because he didn't want to mess with the graves.
So they got together and I stood nearby, watching them dig up four caskets. There were three adults sized caskets and one child sized casket. And they all looked really old. One of the bigger caskets had holes and cracks all over it. That was the one that my grandpa and the other relative was carrying when the body fell out the bottom of the casket.
The body was pretty much bones but it still had old muscle and tissue on it. I remember feeling sick to my stomach as O watched them uncomfortably put the body back into the casket upside down.
4.) From Rovarin:
My great great grandfather and his son were foremen at the cemetery in my hometown - of course way before I was ever around. The older of them was said to be 'sensitive' (as in he felt and saw things) and there are stories of people that he buried that came by during nights to tell him that they were cold (which means that there were no flowers/wreaths on the grave) or that their feet were cold (the soil around where the foot of the casket was had leveled). He was also said to be able to see people in what we refer to as 'hamferð' (skin-journey... as in the body shows itself to tell someone that the soul has departed), one particular story about that that they still tell around the Sunday dinner table is when a friend of his had been lost at sea, nobody knew of course until much later, but my 2xg grandfather saw his friend entering the house, drenched in seawater and noisily walk into the living room and sits himself on an old sailor's chest that was by the door and just as soon the man disappears.
My great grandfather took over his father's job when he got too old to do it. I can't remember any similar stories about him, but there is a joke about some youngsters that tried to scare him that people have told all over the country (probably an imported joke). There were a few people in town that didn't like the fact that the graveyard workers worked after dark, and there were a group of young men that decided that enough was enough, they were going to scare the gravedigger. So they outfitted themselves with white sheets and went to the graveyard and walked around the graveyard saying all sorts of ghostly sounds like... 'Booo!' and they found the gravedigger as he was in the middle of digging a grave by hand, and they stood around the grave for what seemed like hours, shouting and screaming and doing whatever it is that ghosts do. The gravedigger paid them no mind and just continued with his work. The young men then, having given up, started to leave and as they approached the gate of the graveyard they could hear shouting and protesting behind them, as the gravedigger angrily came running towards them, shouting: "It's one thing that you are up and about walking around here, but don't you think for a second that I will allow you to leave!!"
5.) From whiteclawlaw:
My dad purchased a cemetery when I was in middle school, and I worked for him through high school graduation. I did yard work; mowing, weed eating, flower beds, ect. Aside from the occasional shadows seen out of the corner of my eye, seeing people who turned out to not be there, and hearing strange sounds, the cemetery was actually a quite peaceful place.
BUT. The strangest is when you have a burial in the crypts. Basically, you dig down about 4 or 5 feet to expose giant cement doors. You pull the cement doors off and drop down into a little room. These rooms can fit 2 coffins, OR years and years and years worth of cremated remains. So back in the 50s and 60s, family's would buy one crypt and the entire fam would be cremated and put in it. Some just put the cremated remains in it and close her up, but others light candles and leave flowers and souvenirs and pictures and shit. Its fucking creepy opening up one of those bad boys after 50 years and finding melted candles and old pictures of the people inside. Plus when you hop down in there you have a weird realization that you are at the same level and completely surrounded by bodies...
6.) From AlcoholicSpaceEater:
Former Funeral director here.
My partner and I had just gotten back to the funeral home from a house call for a 31 year old woman who died of cancer. As we were moving her body from the cot to embalming table we heard an audible click and the radio across the room turned on full volume of static. It's one of those old radios you turn the volume dial until it clicks to turn it on.
We both looked at each other. He was an extremely religious man and this event visibly shook him and he left not long after the incident. I shut the radio off as I typically used my phone to listen to music while embalming. When I'd finished the procedure and was attempting to move her from the embalming table to a dressing table I heard that click from that old radio and it turned on full volume yet again.
At that point I was fairly freaked out and made my exit not long after. My partner and I never spoke of it again and nothing like that ever occurred to my knowledge before or after.
7.) From BrutalBob1384:
I worked for a county cemetery department years ago. We would go to all the cemeteries in the county and mow or just do basic upkeep. Occasionally people (mainly farmers) would stumble upon some headstones in a field or a stand of trees and we would come out and prod the ground with dowel rods to find more headstones and reestablish the cemetery. Soon after I started working there we got a tip about some headstones a farmer found while clearing out a path through some trees for easier access to his field. It turned out to be the oldest cemetery in the county dating back to the 1700's. After investigating some of the names on the headstones it got really creepy. The story is that before the cemetery was there a school house stood there. The teachers were a husband and wife. It's not clear on what exactly happened but the students and the husband and wife all died in the schoolhouse. The information we found kind of made it sound like an illness of some kind and they were all quarantined in the school until they all died. After that the school was demolished and the students and husband and wife were all buried right where the school stood. So yeah I'm sure it's haunted.
8.) From Pof_no:
When I was in college I worked part time at a Jewish Cemetery in reception/office management. The cemetery was closed from Friday afternoon through Saturday evening for Sabbath. We sometimes stayed a bit later in the office on Friday afternoons to get bills out or checks processed. We heard a loud commotion by the cemetery entrance which was locked and only staff could get in and out. The office manager went to see what was going on and made me come with her. We went down to the gate to find an older woman (probably around 70) dressed to the 9's begging us to let her in. She kept saying she needed to get back. This was in the suburbs of NJ so you needed a car to get around but we didn't see a car or anything, she was just there in this beautiful dress. We couldn't open the gate without the Cemetery Manager, so we went to go get him. We brought him back to the gate and no one was there. We looked at video footage of the entrance and you could see us (the office manager and me) talking but there was no one on the other side of the gate. The cemetery manager thought we were trying to trick him. I swear to this day we saw a woman in a fancy dress outside that gate. There were multiple cameras and not a single one picked up anyone on the other side of the gate and you could see the whole gate. All you could see was us. I don't know if it was a ghost or what. The office manager and I decided not to tell anyone else, but we would mention it to each other every once in a while.
9.) From kg1206:
We had a late afternoon service once that ran into the evening, it was October so the sun went down early while I was filling in the grave afterwards. Conveniently none of the lights on the loader tractor worked for some reason. No blown fuses or looses wires or anything the lights just didn’t work.
Next day when I reported the issue we went over to the same tractor and the lights worked perfectly fine and they worked fine the rest of the time I worked there.
10.) From nkeene32:
i don't work in a cemetery, but i did go clean one up with my family. We cut down weeds planted flowers ect; so anyways i was wiping off graves when i seen three graves side by side and they didn't have the same last name so i asked my mom if they were related and she said "no, but a women was married to them and they had all gotten into accidents within two years of being married to her. She buried them side by side and when she passed away she requested to be buried in a cemetery two counties away. Its strange because the first grave the man died in 1984 the second died in 1986 and the third died in 1988. They were all very wealthy and owned their own businesses and when they died she closed the businesses.
11.) From MoreTorqueSteve:
I dug graves for six months. One afternoon we had to hand dig a hole in a older cemetery b/c we couldn't run any heavy equipment over any of the older plots. It was super tough and took us a lot longer than usual. When we were finally close to be done, it was dark and hard to see. I remember my shovel hitting a brick of the neighboring plot (before cement casks), and a it coming loose. I swear to god I saw something move inside the small hole and practically jumped out of the grave. I got back in to finish the job, but was definitely spooked.
12.) From ShootPplNotDope:
Strange people visiting. I worked at the cemetery Jimmi Hendrix is buried at, so lots of weed and people hanging around. We found a dead homeless man behind a mausoleum, smelled him first. One time, getting ready to bury a person, we dug a grave. It was in a section of the graveyard that had very old burials (100+ years), so wooden caskets. My foreman at the time was squaring off the hole with a shovel, then he saw a skull looking right at him. He quickly and quietly pushed it farther into the dirt and told us not to say anything. If the office people had found out, it would have been a whole thing. Digging it up, trying to figure out who it was, etc. Never saw a ghost, but some of the old timers say they did. Not sure if I believe them. Lots of other stories, but that stands out.
13.) From BloodSpades:
It’s not quite the same, but I had an uncle who tried “working” (as in selling and doing drugs) the graveyards between 10pm and 4am. He only lasted a few nights in that area then never went back.
What was it that scared him so badly that he felt his soul rattle in his bones, as his blood froze cold????
Prairie dogs.... Fucking, prairie dogs....
What’s so frightening about simple ground squirrels you might ask? Those cute little fuzz balls that scavenge whatever they can... Well, apparently they like to randomly come out their holes in the middle of the night, and scream...
Creepy, but that doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, now imagine being surrounded by dozens of little rodents you can’t see, in the pitch black of night, surrounded by the dead, tweaked out of your mind, paranoid as hell, and then suddenly hearing Hellish blood curdling screaming all around you.....
His little group scattered like roaches, and I think someone fell into a ditch, but he was convinced it was an empty grave. He never did that again.
14.) From PeaTearGriphon:
I used to mow the lawn at a cemetery as part of my summer job. I always volunteered because it was the only place I could work with my shirt off and try to fight my farmer's tan. Anyway the only creepy thing is that coffins must break and fill with dirt over time because once and awhile you'll be walking and sink up to your knee in a small sink hole on top of a grave. Didn't really bother me unless I was walking at a good pace but some of the other people would get freaked out by that.
15.) From Freddie30234:
I was a tombstone caretaker for a cemetary in rural georgia, summertime job for a 16 yearold, nothing crazy, just cleaning off the grime of the elements on tombstones ect.
Now to just put a setting, the cemetary included one building that housed bathrooms for the 5 “staff members” of this cemetary, a small simple mausoleum, and then other than that, flat earth with tombstones EVERYWHERE, the only surroundings were dense forrests in the georgia country.
That being said, due to the eery surroundings, i was always a bit paranoid, plus i watch alot of scary movies and so on, i know, bad combo.
So one night i was doing my rounds, and i had to go into the small mausoleum, had some of the richer families in the areas entombed within, and i had to go in, makesure all was neat and clean, standards had to be upheld for these uppity folks. So i approached, and right off the bat, something was off, the air was pretty damn cold, during the summer in georgia, that was odd. Other, there was a light coming from the mausoleum, and as i approached, i head voices, laughter? Laughter from a child, a little girl, i thought it was simply younger folks maybe? I havent seen anyone enter or leave the cemetery, and the laughter sounded young, however as i got closer, the voices and laughter died, like almost instant. I pause. The light i also noticed had gone out, i call the lone security officer that does a few rounds on the lot, cuz im not gonna go in alone, and he comes, we will call him, officer friendly.
When officer friendly arrives we both go inside, We see one of the doors to the entombed remains of a young girl, open...... nothing was disturbed within, but it was open, and a doll, lay on the stone beneath it, me and officer friendly do a small sweep, it was only one floor and one room, so it didnt take long,, we close the door to the girls entombment, and we both leave, as we walk away, we get about 30 feet from the mausoleum, and then all of a sudden, boom, voices and laughter again. I jump, and officer friendly looks to me, looking pretty shaken, says to me “you hear it too?” We look back, and boom, lights back, laughter continuing. We dont go back and just book it, i found out the next morning, the door was open again, this time the doll was on the otherside of the mausoleum from where we found it the night before.
I resigned the next day, im good lol
16.) From The1stQueenbee:
When I lived in Guam I was impressed by their huge cemeteries with their gigantic white monuments and was wandering through at dusk one day and saw a mist rising from one particular monument and being a little freaked, left quickly. It happened a few times and I was seriously starting to question my sanity so the next time I saw it I decided to approach to see detail only to find that it was a very sad brother having a cigarette with his deceased brother. I told him he had scared the crap out of me and he said that he'd seen plenty of things there to make him question his sanity.
17.) From odakyu11:
I used to work as a 'park ranger' in a cemetary in London which has been converted into a nature reserve. its in a very ghetto area the local kids nicknamed it 'the forest'
regularly we'd find ammunition, knives and occasionally pistols hidden in the memorials/gravestones and the police would be called to collect them. a friend once found a backpack full of molotov cocktails prepared. I never saw a pistol myself.
only once I had the honor of finding something. I found a plastic bag stuffed behind a collapsed monument and inside it had a load of shotgun shells.
it was terrifying for me because you have no idea if someone is watching you or aware that you've just found their stash.
the police come, you have to have to show them where it is and that further highlights your involvement to any of the local kids watching you.
that particular park people avoid as soon as the sun goes down.
18.) From BushWookieViper:
I worked security for a nursery(for trees and plants) And when they changed owners (before my time) the new owners found that the old owners had dug up part of a grave yard. broken headstones were just piled up next to still standing ones. And so the company puzzled the headstones back together and set them in concrete. All that setup is to tell you that I would be patrolling in a vehicle and I would go past the cemetery and there would be this coyote and a owl just hanging out in the middle of the graveyard looking at me. This happened pretty regularly.
19.) From AngerIsMyDefaultMode:
My mom and stepdad were the caretakers of a small cemetary for about 10 years. All of us kids(6 between the two of them) helped out at one point or another. One summer I was helping my mom with mowing and upkeep. It was a super hot summer so we would try to go and get the mowing done early before the heat became too unbearable. Well, we had trouble getting the truck going one day, so we ended up starting a little later than usual and were unable to finish up everything that day. My mom had an appointment the next morning and the day after that it was supposed to rain, so I told her I would go up early the next morning and finish up the trimming with the weed eater. So, it's about 7 in the morning and I am listening to music with my headphones and going around the headstones. Everything was going well until I got to the oldest section of the cemetery. That part was on a small slope of a hill. Once you got to the bottom and looked up you couldn't see the road, but you could see it again once you were about half way up. When I finished up the last headstone, I turned off my equipment and started back up the hill. I glanced up in time to see a little girl in a pretty red dress. She was running and disappeared behind a large headstone. I figured her parents were visiting another grave and the little girl ran off to entertain herself. It was around 9 a.m. at this point. I got to the top of the hill and there was no car or people around. The cemetery wasn't really close to any houses, and the girl was too nicely dressed to have walked out there. I looked around and shouted for her to come out. I was able to see the headstone she ran behind, and I would have seen her if she ran out again. I couldn't find her anywhere. I called my mom and told her what was going on and asked if I should call the police and tell them about this little girl. She looked to be about 3 or 4 years old, so she certainly shouldn't be by herself. My mom asked me if she was wearing a red dress. I said yes, why? So, she proceeds to nonchalantly tell me that was just the ghost girl. Now, everyone who knows me knows that I don't fuck with ghosts. I asked why she didn't tell me there was a ghost in the cemetery! She said she needed my help and was afraid I wouldn't go up if l thought it was haunted. Now granted, I probably would have been more leery of the place, but knowing no one else could help her, I would have still helped her that summer, but I would have made sure I wasn't there by myself! I still go there sometimes as I have relatives buried there, but I am always with someone. Fortunately, I never saw any other ghosts and I have never seen the little ghost girl ever again.
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