Remember when U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives at Ashecliffe Hospital in Shutter Island? That uneasy feeling Teddy gets as he enters the fortress-like insane asylum? Places with such disturbing vibes exist not only in movies. Abandoned campsites, old cemeteries; maybe you've been to one as well.

Thankfully, there's usually an explanation for why they're so creepy. Usually. But not always. Sometimes, these sites are surrounded by so much mystery, it's hard to even make sense of them. Interested in these cases, Redditor MercuryCrest asked other users: "Eerie towns, disappearing diners, and creepy gas stations... What's your true, unexplained story of being in a place that shouldn't exist?" Here are some of the replies they have received.

#1

I was driving from Dallas to Tuscaloosa. Left at midnight and drove straight through the night with two friends passed out sleeping. It was probably 4am and I had a 1/4 tank of gas which translates to about 100 miles. I see that the nearest town is about 90 miles so I’m pretty worried about making it.

Before I hit that town, I ran into a tiny town that wasn’t on the map. A few houses, a gas station, a convenient store, and that was about it.

I walk into the gas station and hand the guy a 50$ so I can fill up. He was a really tall skinny black guy. Like skin wrapped around bones level skinny. Probably 6’5 at least. And he just had this eerie look about him.

He looks at me, leans over the counter, scans the outside, and looks back at me. He hands me my 50$ back and a hat and says “look, you look like a nice young fella. You don’t want to be out here at this time of night lookin like that. Put the hat on, get to your car quickly, and get gas at the next town.” (Based on the way he said it and how he pointed, “lookin like that” was about being white I think but I’m not positive.)

I was super confused and just said “I don’t have enough gas to get there, that’s why I’m here. I didn’t even know this place existed.” He responds “it doesn’t. Here, there’s 2 gallons left in this can. Just drive another 15-20 miles out and use those two gallons. But please, you need to move now.”

At that point I stopped questioning him and left. On my return trip, it was day time. So I wanted to stop back in and return the Can with 2 gallons in it. But wouldn’t you f*cking know? Couldn’t find the goddamn little town again. It’s like it disappeared over the weekend.

To thus day, I refuse to stop in small towns that aren’t on the map. I have no idea what that gas station employee was trying to save me from, but he pushed me out of there with some urgency and even gave me free gas to do so.

Image credits: [deleted]

#2

So, my best friend and I are driving from Texas to Kansas City. We wanted to pick up some Taco Cabana for a friend in KC on the way back, so we wanted to find the closest one to KC. Google Maps says there is one on the way, just like two hours away from home! Score, right?

Wrong.

When we get close, it is near 2AM. We have been driving all day. We are tired. Google Maps tells us to get off the highway, so we do. It drives us through a small town, christmas lights and banners hanging, streetlights on and everything holiday levels of cheer. Apparently the place isn't in the town, which is kinda f*cky, but hey, fast food tex-mex. We keep driving, the roads get dodgier and dodgier, until google maps has us turn down a literal dirt road. Another mile or so in, and Google Maps calmly says

"You have arrived at the destination."
We are surrounded by trees on all sides. It is pitch black. It is getting foggier by the second. I turn the car around and GTFO.

We can't cancel the google navigation, but instead of saying rerouting, that cold robot voice just keeps repeating:

Turn back.
Turn back.
Turn back.
I have to figure out how to get back on the highway, and it is made all the harder by the sudden death of the town. The lights are gone. The buildings are closed down and run down. Everything that had been alive ten minutes ago was rubble and regret. My friend is losing it, thinking we have entered Silent Hill. I am furiously driving, watching blankets of fog roll in behind us at every intersection. At last, I find the on-ramp and get back on the highway.

Sometimes I want to go looking for that town. Most days, though, I am smarter than that.

Image credits: Panzer_Girl

#3

My grandparents had a big farm when I was growing up and all of the grandkids would help work it over the summer when we were out of school. Anytime we saw a rabbit we were supposed to get it with the hoe or grab the shotgun. I was around 12 or so when I saw a little rabbit in the beans and I didn't want my grandfather to see it so I tried to chase it off. Followed it into the brush on the land and for whatever reason I just kept following it because usually I'd lose sight of them pretty quickly once they hit the brush. Kept following it until I found what was clearly an old barn ruin. These are pretty normal to happen upon where I'm from and they're fun to look around inside, so I went in. It was weirdly kept up really well with antique tools in great shape and fresh hay. I worried I had crossed into our neighbors’ property so I high-tailed it out of there. I asked my grandfather about it and he said our land went way far past what I had described, and I couldn’t have left our land in the short amount of time I was gone, so he followed me out there and we couldn’t find it. I checked every summer I worked there and never found it again. Not creepy but it always drove me crazy where that stupid barn went.

Image credits: literal9

#4

Not the most interesting story, but I grew up in the middle of nowhere and some of my relatives lived a few minutes walk from my house up a hill and they had woods behind their houses. I used to explore the woods all the time. I knew the paths and places well. You couldn't go too far because there was a cliff and an incredibly deep lake beyond the cliff.

Anyway one day while walking I see an old log cabbin. It was a sitting in the middle of a field I had been to many times before. It was a bright and sunny day. The field was lit up in gold. The cabbin was very dark and strange. I felt like I shouldn't go near it because I knew it shouldn't have been there. I was very confused to suddenly see this cabbin which had never existed before.

I left the woods, but went back numerous times looking for the cabbin again. Never saw it again in my life. And I do know the location it was in, I wasn't lost. And again, there are only a few places you can go back in those woods since there is a cliff and a lake. It's not like miles and miles of woods before you reach the cliff.

Image credits: [deleted]

#5

One time I was hiking around Arkansas with my wife and lost track of time. We ended up being too late for a camp spot at our intended place so we had to search for another one. Eventually we found a sort of ranch where the owners often let campers stay who had nowhere else to go, so all was good. It was a bit crowded with other campers so we had to ask these college-age kids if we could camp next to them on their spot and they agreed. The kids were nice and even helped with our tent but kept us up later than we wanted because they were loud and getting wasted well into the night.

Anyway, we wake up in the morning and I'm just eating breakfast and getting ready and stuff when out of my eye, I notice someone coming out of our neighbor's tent but I didn't recognize her. It was a woman who was much older than the kids from last night, followed by her small daughter. The college kids from last night weren't there but the actual stuff was the same. It was still their tent, their chairs, their car, same everything except for the people. It was really surreal; everything was literally the same about our neighbors except instead of them being 4 college kids, they had been replaced by an older family of 3.

Image credits: mythical_accountant

#6

When my brother and I were 10 and 12 respectively our family went on a hike through the cemetery and into the woods not far from our house.

(My brothers and I would explore these woods every day. Even camped in em before. We knew it like the back of our hands. )

Anyway, as the family hits our usual spot by the creek halfway through brother 1 and I said wed be back in a few, we wanted to wander off further up creek. So we did.

We came across a very large hill we had never seen before. It was littered with what looked like someone's worldly possessions. As if they turned a house upside down, shook out the contents, took the house and left. There were tons of painted X's on the trees showing someone intended to cut them down at some point. We poked around for a few when we thought we heard our mom hollering at us. So we turned tail and walked maybe 20 feet back down the hill to where our parents were. The entire encounter was maybe 45 minutes long....on our end.

As soon as our mom saw us we got the beating of a life time. We had actually been gone almost 4 hours. She never saw us walk up any hill and remembered seeing us meandering down the strait path by the creek, not turning up a hill that was 20 feet away . She and her husband and our other brother combed the woods for over 4 hours screaming our names and couldn't find hide nor tail of us.

We pleaded our case and even tried showing her the hill. Surely she was messing with us. So we stomped up to the turn off for the hill and....it was gone. No where to be seen. For YEARS we explored the woods determined to find that f*cking hill. We covered miles and miles of off path woods. As we got older we mapped it out. To this day that hill does not exist. We never found it again. Never found the weird furniture, toys, clothes, and other house hold items that were scattered across the hill. And never met anyone in the area that had a clue about the hill.

We probably just wandered way further then we meant to but I always found it weird that we never found the hill again.

Image credits: RealAbstractSquidII

#7

When I was about 12, my mom and I were traveling cross country to move. We were staying the night in Missouri, at a typical roadside hotel next to an Applebee’s, so we went in for dinner. It was packed, despite us being one of only a couple guests at the hotel, so we sat up at the bar. We noticed something weird after a few seconds - every single person had a glass of milk in front of them. Even the dudes around the bar. Nothing else, just a tall glass of milk. Someone opened the fridge under the center bar and we saw just gallons of milk. The bartender took our dinner orders and brought each of us a glass of milk without us asking for anything to drink. It was so f*cking weird. My mom told me not to drink it.

On our way back to our room my mom stopped at the front desk and asked the woman working there, half-jokingly and half-concerned, why everyone drinks so much milk in this town. The woman said she had no idea what she was talking about and we just moved on. When we were putting our leftovers in the mini fridge up in our room, there were like ten mini-cartons of milk. No brand, just the word MILK in black lettering.

It was a weird place and I’ve never been able to figure it out.

Image credits: sweetrhymepurereason

#8

By my hometown there was a hiking trail that people went to very infrequently. It was along the side of the Niagara Escarpment so it had some climbable cliffs, and some very shallow caves that you could crawl around on.

I went with some friends when I was 19/20 and we were crawling around and found a cave that went pretty deep. We had never been in there before, had never even seen it before. So we pushed forward and decided to check it out even though we had no flashlights and this was when cellphones didn't really have a flashlight function.

We stepped into the cave and it was easily 20-30 degrees cooler than outside. Upon looking around with which light we had we noticed it was really clean inside the cave, as in it didn't have beer cans littered everywhere like all the other small caves did. While in there we got a really eerie feeling after being in there shortly... hearing weird and strange things. Feeling like we were being touched, poked and pulled and not having anyway to figure out who was doing it because it was too dark. We were just using lighters to see what was around us.

We were convinced one of us was messing with the others. Although anytime we sparked up a lighter, we were all decently far apart.

We decided to high-tail it out of there after only a few minutes, convinced to come back with flashlights. We came out to see that it was now dusk outside, when we entered it was mid-day. Somehow we had lost roughly 3 hours inside of this cave.

We went with back with flashlights the next week. But have never been able to find this cave again

Edit: Got 8pms asking where this is.

It is in Wisconsin, Oakfield ledge if you want to check it out!

Image credits: Economy_Cactus

#9

this story takes place in the mid 90's, a time before widely used cell phones and GPS. My two best friends and I freshly able to drive decided we would head out on a Saturday to a water park in Southern Missouri about a 3 hour drive from our home town in Northwest Arkansas. We had never been before and just used road maps to get there.

We had pretty fantastic time but as the sun started to reach the tree line we thought we ought to head home. Its about 7 o'clock and we miss a turn but my friend Paul who was navigating said not to worry another turn was coming up that would get us their just as fast. The next turn took us from detoured to completely lost. By 8 o'clock we are on a road that seemed to be lacking in informative road signs and zero lights.

We finally see a gas station and are relieved to get some directions as well as some gas. My friend Taylor and I go inside while Paul pumps the gas. We come inside and a very friendly old man in his early 60s who gives us a very large grin and says "Weeeeell Hello there" it was very foghorn leghorn-esk. Looked like an extreme hillbilly but very pleasant.

We explained that we were needing gas and wanted to fill up. He explained that he was about to shut down for the night but would be happy to oblige us. He then said something I'll never forget, "You have to make haste though... tonight is buffer night." Taylor and I looked at each other and shared an awkward look. We asked him if he could point out our location on the road map.

While he was finding it two people entered the shop from the back and called out for the old man. He said he was up front. The two approached us, A man and a woman, and at first looked confused then as though hit with an epiphany they smiled. They asked the old man "Are these the guests tonight?" He shot them a look and said "no these are some lost children."

The way he said "Children" caused the hairs on my neck to stand up. Not sure why. They looked at us and said "The three of you should make haste, because tonight is buffer night." Two things scared the sh*t out of me right then. The first being how did they know about Paul pumping gas out front when they came from the back and the second being that they repeated the old man verbatim.

We clarified the directions to get back on a main highway and paid for the gas without waiting for change. Taylor and I booked it out of the gas station to find Paul already in the passenger seat. When we got into the car we were nearly airborne from the speed we took off. Before we could say anything Paul told us about how three men from across the street stood under a tree just watching him. He waved but they didn't move a muscle.

We just drove as fast as we could until we got back to the highway. To this day I will still have a nightmare every so often about that gas station and what my imagination has twisted "Buffer night" into being.

Image credits: Slooth849

#10

In the 7th grade I had a friend that lived near a beach on a bay of lake Michigan. One day in early May it reached 70 degrees, nearly unheard of for that time of year in northern Wisconsin. My two friends, including the beach friend, excitedly rode our bikes down to the beach to maybe dip our toes in, expecting still frigid waters, and then "tan" for the rest of the afternoon. The water, though, was surprisingly warm. Like bathwater warm. In this particular area of the bay the water was shallow for about a half mile out, and we joyously splashed around, wading deeper and deeper until we were about chest deep. As we dunked each other and swam with abandon I started to feel sick. Bad headache, nausea, wobbly. Just then, my other two friends mentioned that they also felt sick. We headed back to shore, nearly crawling by the time we got out. The three of us collapsed under a tree and fell asleep for 2ish hours. When we woke up we talked about how weird it was. I dipped my toe back in the water and it was freezing cold. To this day I have no idea what was in there. I do know that there is a chemical plant in town that used to manufacture things like agent orange, and that their practices were known to be less that environmentally conscious. I have never touched that water since.

Image credits: seersucker

#11

When my friends and I were 12, some other friends were talking about this place they had found a few roads down from our school. They said it was an 'insane asylum.' This sounded like a total lie but it was enough to scare us a bit. Eventually, after convincing us to go see it with them, we met after school and walked down to where it apparently was. Our school was in a suburban area and completely surrounded by houses for 1km in every direction. This place was stuck in between two homes. It had a high hedge and a small gate that split it into two. You could see the roof over the hedge. Everything was fairly well maintained, and it didn't look deserted. However, when you're 12, you can't back down if someone calls you a 'fraidy cat so we had to go (read: break) in.

Once we got inside, we found that it really was some sort of hospital. There was no one there but the place was totally trashed. All the interior stuff had been left behind but it looked like it had been thrown and kicked around the rooms. Everything was broken and scratched and ripped and torn. Chairs, tables, couches, curtains, windows, those little brown medicine bottles, paper, files, bent metal cabinets etc it was just a hospital themed trash heap. There were also dark brown stains along a lot of the walls - long lines like you dragged your finger or hand but also vague shapes like letters. That scared the sh*t out me. The place definitely felt deserted but there was also sunlight streaming through all the windows and nothing looked particularly old so it had this really odd surreal quality. The best bit was finding two legit white padded cells/rooms with that tiny window in the door and the curly iron grate in front of it. Just like in a movie.

In that particular mess I found a blue file, completely filled with handwritten notes on exam pad paper, in alternating blue and black ink. It read like a nurse writing a diary about her patients ' Tuesday, 16th June - He was better today...'. - that kind of thing, I wish I could remember! There must have been about 100 filled pages but it seemed to focus on three or four patients. At that point we knew for sure it was some kind of institution,not that the padded rooms didn't give that away. I decided to take the file home, cus how cool? - At some point someone found a piano and smashed some keys, we all just about shat ourselves and ran. We didn't stop screaming till we got back to the road.

I still had the file but I realized my mom would want to know where the hell it came from and she was a fan of grounding me for almost no reason but I also started to get this really weird sick feeling in my stomach whenever I held it. So I left that sh*t on the street and we went home. Still regret that but also not really.

We must've spent about two hours exploring that place and there were 8 of us who all remember that day. I also still live in the area so I could go there now. The only thing is, it's not there. I get that renovations happen or property gets sold especially with all the time in between then and now but, we never found that place again after that day. None of us, it was just gone. We tried to go back but couldn't find it. It was like it literally vanished into thin air. The hedge, the gate, everything. Gone. We even checked other roads incase we were on the wrong one by accident but nothing. We never found it again. And that makes no freaking sense. I mean, I imagine there's a rational explanation but that definitely turned that afternoon into legend for all of us and is still the creepiest experience I've ever had.

Image credits: sthrlnd

#12

Driving in rural areas in New England, near the borders of Vermont and Mass, so I am not sure which one I was in. It was late... Well OK, so late it was actually early. And there was fog, dense dense fog. Like Silent Hill levels of fog. And like an idiot who dies in the opening scene of a horror movie, I am driving on back roads. First my headlight just up and goes out, cannot use high beams because of fog. I am in the middle of no where, I haven't seen a house or town in a long time. Car starts making noise, check engine light comes on. So I pull over nothing much around field and fog and dark. Creepy as hell. I gamely look at the engine, I can fix electronics, not engines. I tighten all the things I know.
Car now won't start. So I am in the dark, in the middle of no where, on the side of the road. Because of the natural rules of how things work, my cell phone has no service as well. It is like one big cliche. But I am not stupid enough to go wandering the roads right now. So I recline my seat and decide to take a nap for a couple hours until the sun comes up.

I wake up, the sun is coming up, the fog is going away... and I am in on the main street of a tiny town, parked in front of what looks like the Bates Motel house. Houses everywhere. It was the the creepiest feeling. I was sure in off in the woods. There was not a light on in any house all night? There was a service station 50 yards up the road, I walked up to it, talked to the guy (who looked perfectly normal), he walked over to look at the car, asked me to try to start it.... and it did. F*cking thing turned over right away. And... BOTH headlights were working.

I drove on, never got the name of the little village, and I couldn't find it on a map. I always felt like I was in this big set up for a horror movie that just didn't pan out.

Image credits: xilstudio

#13

About 6 yers back my mom my brother and me took a road trip from SoCal to Seattle. We stopped at s couple places a long the way to make it a long trip. The way back were driving through Oregon and it starts snowing. It’s about midnight so we decide to get a room spend the night and head out back in the morning. We see this really ugly sign off the freeway saying hotel next exit so I take the exit and head up. It goes up a hill and back down and it’s just a huge clearing. Small little motel there’s cars there looks full. It’s like a bunch of bungalows all closed off and split into rooms. The cars all are parked in front of the rooms except like 1 room. I go up to the middle bungalow door where it says office I walk in, some guy come out the back and he was obviously sleeping and I had woke him up. I ask for a room and he says “hold on man let me handle something in the back real quick” the guy lets out this massive gnarly fart. Stars low and ends high. Pretty sure he had to wipe after that one. I start laughing and he walks back in and gets mad I’m laughing. Gives me the key and my mom and bro all go to the room for the night. Next morning it’s about 7 am and we hear people outside the room. It’s loud and a lot of people. I look out the window and no one is there. Not a single person but we can still hear them. We got ready and left at about 7:30 in the morning. We can still hear people but still don’t see anyone. We walk outside and it’s nothing but old cars parked there. Rusted out, some sitting in cinder blocks, some no windows. I go to the office and a different guy than the gnarly fart guy is there. He keeps asking if we’re sure we don’t want to stay another night. I say no and we get in the car and remembered we saw a McDonald’s like an exit or 2 back. So we backtrack get breakfast and we start heading back home. On the way back we pass a sign that says no facilities next 20 mikes or something like that. We don’t see the bootleg sign we had seen the night before. After that we made sure we only stayed at big motels off the freeway.

Image credits: newnameilostoldname

#14

I went to an all-girls Catholic school. It's a very big school (around 2,000 students K-12) is located on top of a mountain and surrounded by some sort of forest. When I was in 2nd grade, around 8 years old, my friends and I liked walking around and exploring different places in school, the woods nearby (which was off-limits), the pond, and other school buildings and facilities.

One day, my friends and I stumbled upon an area that looked like a series of tombs, there were maybe 20+ tombs in there, some open, some closed. We don't know how we got there, but we were curious little sh*ts, so we went closer to see. As we got closer to the tombs, an old man holding a broom came out of nowhere and surprised us. He said he's the caretaker of the place and that's where the old nuns of the school were laid to rest. After that, he told us that we shouldn't be there and not to come back. So we left.

Now comes the weird part. After leaving the area, my friends and I found ourselves in an unfamiliar place. Seems like we were lost. We were getting nervous, but just decided to keep walking until we find someplace familiar. We walked for, like, 10 minutes, then one of us saw one of the school buildings, which made it easy for us to get back to our classroom. Turns out, we have been gone for 4 hours and the school guards and teachers have been looking for us. As we explained to them that we just walked around and saw the tombs, the teachers and school guards gave us weird looks and said there's no such place.

Image credits: growlinterrupted

#15

When i went on a road trip to see my family in Texas, i stopped at a gas station to fill up and get some coffee as it was about 2am. I went inside, and there was a man at the counter smiling as normal. They didn’t sell coffee, surprisingly, so i settled with an energy drink. I exited the store, got into my car, and drove off as you normally would. As soon as i left the parking lot of the dimly lit gas station, my gas tank was back on low, my energy drink was gone, as if it vanished out of the cup holder, and when i looked into my rear view mirror there was no gas station. I turned around and all there was was Texas land. I still have no clue what happened to this day

#16

I once went on holiday back to where my parents were born in India.

We have a family home that is outside a moderately sized town. It's very isolated. To get to our home, you'd have to drive out of town and then 10 minutes down a narrow road with steep drop-offs on each side that contained rice fields full of water.

My cousin and I were both around 13 years old and would spend the days bored out of our minds, causing trouble. We didn't have any other kids to play with as the home was so isolated, and we couldn't walk into town as it was too far. Sometimes, my parents or uncle would take us into town and buy us [toys]...

One day, we were messing about, and my uncle suggested we explore the local forest, which literally surrounded our house. I think we were annoying him...

We decided to walk in a straight line, as we thought this would be the easiest way to not get lost. It wasn't something we were worried about, as the forest wasn't that dense, and we could see the house as we began walking in.

Two things about India: it's blindingly hot and unbelievably humid. After an hour or so of exploring, we were tired and decided to head back. We just turned around and walked straight back the way we came. An hour later, however, we were not at the house. At this point, we were deliriously thirsty and hungry. We were spoiled kids and not used to this level of physical labor.

Another hour passed, and we still didn't arrive home. But we started hearing waves, like we were near a beach. My cousin was perplexed as there was no sea/river/lake near us. I just thought we must've gone really far, but was excited in my own way that beach must mean that there'll be other people there.

We eventually reached a clearing, and we were both open-mouthed at the beauty of the scene before us. There was a huge waterfall. If anyone has been to Plitvice in Croatia, it was a similar size. It was incredible. I didn't want to blink in case I missed a second of it. We were on the bank, and the waterfall was above us to the side. Next to us were mangoes falling off the trees, some green, others orange. The water looked so clear and cool. I can't describe it very well, but I'm quite well-traveled (been to over 20 countries), and I have never seen something so perfect.

We immediately ran to the river and drank, something we knew definitely never to do in India. This water, however, looked so clean and tasted fine. My cousin sliced up some mangoes, and we sat on the banks talking and chilling, content with being lost for a while.

As time dragged on, we again realized we needed to find home. My cousin suggested I climb a tall tree next to us, so I did. From the top, I could see a faint clearing that I assumed was our house. We walked all the way back and reached home about half an hour later. My uncle had been going [bonkers] with worry, thinking we had got lost. He was so happy we were back before my parents got home and rushed me to go shower.

When I came out, we excitedly told my uncle about our discovery of the waterfall and the mangoes. My uncle laughed and said there are no waterfalls or rivers in the area, and mangoes don't grow in this area. We assumed he was just ignorant and told our housekeeper about it. He also confirmed there were no streams/rivers/waterfalls in the area.

When I got home, I immediately checked Google Maps and couldn't find any body of water from the satellite view. I googled the area name and waterfall - nothing. I even called my cousin and asked him to recall what happened that date without me saying anything, and he confirmed everything.

I've been back once since then and haven't found the place despite doing everything in my power, including hiring other local people to check.

It was such an incredible, beautiful location that I'm sure if it was found, it would become a tourist area or a national park.

Hopefully, one day, someone will find it.

#17

My ex-girlfriend and I decided to have a sleep-over (we're both girls so this was allowed), she came over and we decided that around nine at night we would go on a walk and my step mother agreed as long as we took our phones and flashlight. Where I used to live people referred to as a hidden utopia because it was so obscured by the woods. We headed out and went on a lonely path that cut straight through the woods with nothing around it but a stream and a tiny park. We laughed and joked, we played some calm music from our phones and it was a cute little date.

She stopped my suddenly and pointed up this large hill, she said she saw some cool looking house so we decided to crawl up the side of the hill. It was difficult since it was slippery but we managed. There was old pottery scattered around the yard and ripped up tires. We were standing behind an old house, it was falling apart and the clock tower area of the house had been burnt down. She gave me her hairpins and I went around the house trying to unlock the doors but all of the locks were filled with cement and all the windows were either covered in spikey vines or covered up with boards.

We found one loose board and so I kicked through it, we slipped past the board and entered the house. The floor was mushy and it smelled musty. With every step I took the floor would make a squishing sound and dip under my weight. You could barely see the floor because it was covered in so much stuff. We headed towards the kitchen and looked through some of the books that had been stacked up in the kitchen. It seemed like whoever lived here had been evicted.

She called me over and I rushed over at her panic filled voice and we saw a skull on the ground, and then we heard a door creaking open somewhere in the house. We booked it.

We revisted it twice that week to look around it and figure out it's mysteries, we looked it up on google maps but google couldn't find it. The third time we went there that week, it wasn't there. We crawled up the hill, nothing was there, all that was there was a few wooden blocks. Everything had disappeared including the large tree right next to the house that was practically part of the house.

We could never find the house again, it had just disappeared and the hill was just a field of grass and flowers. I have pictures of the house on my phone but it doesn't even exist??

#18

When I was a kid I went exploring in these pine woods behind my house. We live on a farm so there’s paddocks in front of our house and pine woods behind us. I wandered off for a bit before realising I was lost. Started to get worried as couldn’t get my bearings. I explored those woods all the time and knew them well and I hadn’t been walking that long so I knew I wasn’t too far in. Yet I was surrounded by trees that weren’t even pine. Which was impossible because it’s a pine forest. Never once had I ever seen a tree that wasn’t pine in that forest, or the surrounding forest. Started to get dark and I started crying and just ran fumbling through the way I had came hoping to find my way back. I then stumbled upon this clearing. Flat ground, near perfect circle. Felt really weird. There were these bushes at the edge of the clearing so I climbed through them. Once I got out I realised I was standing behind the chicken coup right near my house. Ran home and got yelled at by Mum for being out so late. Next day went to check behind chicken coup. No bushes, no clearing- just pine trees. That place just disappeared. Even through my teen years I still wandered off hoping to find that place to prove I wasn’t crazy. Never did.

#19

I've never had anything really spooky happen to me. However, I did find a sweets shop that didn't seem to exist. In college, I ended up in the next town over for a year. I knew almost nothing of this tow. Probably sprang up in the early 40s as most of the buildings had that sort of architecture.

I was exploring the town, got a bit lost and ended up at this sweets shop. They did cookies, cakes and chocolates. I got a couple dozen of those little butter cookies that disintegrate when you put em in your mouth. Asked how to get back to the main road(presmart phone era) and thanked them. Said I'd be back.

Tried to find the place later. Never could. Asked others directions. I was told repeatedly there was no shop like that. It must have been the best damn kept secret in that town.

#20

Many years ago myself and 2 of my best friends decided to go for a day of mountain biking at Snowshoe in southern W.Va. Now this was way before the days of GPS, so we were kinda doing this by some half assed directions and an old map, but the point is we got very lost. Sometime along the way we ended up in this very tiny little town and we figured we would ask for directions it was absolutely deserted. I'm talking not a single soul to be seen anywhere.

We parked the truck and split up looking for anyone. Now this was at around 9-10 a.m. so not exactly the ass crack of dawn mind you. We went into the post office, nobody, we went into the only bar in town which was unlocked, unattended with music playing, but not a single soul present. We went business to business to business and walked the streets and after about 25 min finally found one old guy who just seemed to appear out of nowhere in the middle of town walking alone. The first question we asked his wasn't even for directions. It was "where the hell is everyone" to which he replied: "Well I guess folks round here don't get up much till round noon". We asked him for directions to Snowshoe and he pointed to the road we came in on and said to go that way about 10 miles and make a right and we will find the interstate. We left quickly. We all had a very bad sense of unease about the whole thing.

As we left we were about 5 miles down the road and hit a lady dressed up in a state road uniform standing in the middle of a very long straightaway holding a stop sign. When we approached her she turned the sign from "slow" to "stop". We asked what was going on. She stated that there was road construction ahead. We told here of what just happened and she just kinda laughed and said those people in that town are kinda strange, but let it slide. So we actually started talking to here waiting for a line of traffic to come by from the opposite direction. We actually ended up talking to her for about 45 min to an hour, just shooting the sh*t. Kinda got lost in the convo. Not one single vehicle EVER approached from the other direction or behind us. Eventually she said: "Well I guess it's clear now and y'all can go ahead" and slowly turned the sign from stop to slow and motioned for us to go ahead. We went straight ahead; the only direction you could possibly go for the next 30 some odd miles and didn't see any signs of construction, state road workers, or maintenance going on at all. She had no vehicle we figured she was a flag woman dropped off by some crew up ahead. After the encounter with the town and this woman we had enough and called it quits. We turned on the interstate as soon as we found it and headed north and home. Every single one of us still remembers this whole encounter in vivid detail to this day. I asked my friend about it actually about 3 months ago at this wedding and it still freaks him out to no end.

Image credits: Reconsct

#21

One night in rural Georgia I found what seemed like an alternate reality. It wasn’t creepy at the time, but over the years I’ve started to get creeped out by how unusual that night was.

It was late at night and I was driving home from the Atlanta Airport. Along the way I got hungry and decided to pull off at an exit that had a Waffle House. I don’t even remember the name on the exit or what town this was in, but it was in western Georgia, maybe an hour or so from Atlanta.

For those that don’t know, nearly every Waffle House is the same. Same building set up, same menu, same food, and even the servers all seem cut from the same cloth. They’re no-nonsense people, and often seem a little rough around the edges (in a good way). Waffle House is a reassuring constant in an ever changing world.

But not this Waffle House. You could tell the difference from the moment you pull into the parking lot. The building was bigger than usual, mostly windows, and lit up the area like a beacon. I go inside what can only be described as the cleanest Waffle House I’ve ever seen, it practically glowed. Instead of just booths along the wall they had actual dining tables, and the kitchen was behind a wall (normally you can watch the cooks prepare the food just feet from the booth). There didn’t seem to be any other customers either, which is practically unheard of. Everyone goes to Waffle House, especially late at night after drinking. An attractive and incredibly pleasant woman bustled up and took my order, but otherwise left me alone in this bright restaurant that should have been filling up with people.

She brought back my order, and it was probably the best damn waffle I’ve ever had. I finished eating, paid, then got back on the road home. To this day I haven’t met anyone else that knows about the mythical shining Waffle House on a hill, and am pretty sure it was something out of an alternate universe.

Image credits: forteanglow

#22

Well, this is a happy unexplained story, rather than a creepy one. It happened when I was in high school, circa 1999, back before I had a cell phone, and certainly before I had a smart phone. I wish I could have taken a picture. But part of me feels like maybe I somehow wouldn't have been "allowed" to have this experience if I had had a camera with me.

I was walking my dog in some woods near my house. I was pretty familiar with them, as my dog and I went there often.

One day, I came to an enormous clearing that I had never seen before, like a giant field, smack in the middle of the woods, and it was entirely blanketed with yellow daffodils. Thousands and thousands of them. My dog loved it and romped and frolicked in the daffodils as I took in the beauty and felt completely awed, like I was witnessing something magical. No one else was around, and it felt really special, like the experience was just for me.

I went back the next day. I searched and searched, but I could not find that clearing, nor a single daffodil.

#23

Was driving through Illinois to get to Chicago about a decade ago with a group of friends and we stopped at a Taco Bell. The first thing we noticed was that the workers were acting very odd. Everything they said was monotone and rehearsed. After sitting in this fairly busy restaurant for a bit, we kind of all just looked at each other at the same time as we realized that none of the conversations happening around us made any sense. The people were speaking, and it was English, but the sentences weren't logical. They were just saying words at each other. We didn't say much about it until we got outside, at which point we all freaked out and confirmed each others' experiences at once, and got the f*ck out of there. We jokingly refer to that place as the "NPC Training Center" since the people didn't seem to be real, or they were learning how to be human or something. Still freaks me out.

Image credits: CaptLongbeard

#24

Driving down to Florida through rural Georgia, my husband and I were hungry and needed to go to the bathroom. I have no idea where we were, but it was one of those long stretches of absolutely nothing that you come across in the southeast sometimes, so we were glad when we saw a gas station at an exit. If I remember correctly, it was the only thing there. We got out of the car and noticed that there were a LOT of people in the parking lot, not doing anything, just parked around the edges of the building talking and letting little kids run around, but they didn't seem to be part of a traveling group, if that makes sense. They just seemed to be hanging out. We got a very weird vibe, because they all seemed to look at us as we got out of the car and went inside. No one was inside the store at all, so we went to the bathroom and were looking at the food for sale when everyone, and I mean everyone that had been outside poured into the building all at once. Even though we were hungry, we got weirded out and left without buying anything. To this day I have no idea where we were and why that one gas station was the only building in the middle of nowhere.

I later described it as feeling like one of those places in a movie where people wander into a place, and get chased through the woods and eventually eaten by the townspeople.

Image credits: TaeBelle

#25

Not creepy, just weird to me. A music store seemed to just show up in my town. I'd lived here three years and never saw it. Went in, and the guy had one bass guitar in the store. Me, being a bassist, played it and fell in love. Bought it, and then the next week when I was in town, the store was totally empty, and looked like it hasn't been open in a long time.

Got a new bass out of it though, so I'm cool with it being a spooky ghost store.

Image credits: NamesJeffrey

#26

20 some odd years ago, I took my kids and parents on a driving trip through the Eastern Coast of Canada.

My dad (who was currently driving) decided to take this ‘short cut’ off the main highway down a dirt road.

About 5 minutes down this road, things go eerily quiet. We should be able to hear birds, the trees rustling, cicadas, yet nothing. It was too quiet. Dad starts slowing down.

I am busy looking at the map. I know where we turned off and there was no designated road on our map. I’m worried that I can’t find it.

I look up from the map as I have realized, nobody is talking. Everyone is looking out their windows. There are little stick people and stick designs hanging from the trees. Some are just shapes and others are more intricately made. Dangling, swaying slowly.

Between this and the fact that it was dead quiet, I made an instant decision and told dad to turn around and leave as quickly as possible.

I felt a huge pressure in my ears, like they needed to be popped. Mom had goosebumps and my dad said we were just being silly. He obliged and got us out of there.

Image credits: tattoovamp

#27

Many years ago, my family and I moved from California to Nebraska. I was still a young kid, probably 5-6 years old. We were driving through Nevada and shortly after Las Vegas and we needed to stop and fuel up. We stopped at your typical old school gas station that rings when you pull up to the pump. I don't remember it that well but my dad told me it looked normal. He got out to stretch while my mom went inside to pay for gas. My mom said that when she walked in, the gas station had quite a few people inside(despite us being the only car there.) When she walked up to the counter to pay for gas, everyone turned to her and the lights went out. She ran outside where my dad witnessed everything and helped her into the car and we sped off down the interstate, not caring whether we ran out of gas or not. To this day, my mom says that's one of her scariest encounters because she can't explain nor figure out exactly what was going on. And yes, we found a better gas station down the road and made it to Nebraska.

Image credits: InfamousCrown

#28

10 years ago, my friend and I were bored one night and were driving around. We were on a highway in NJ about 30 minutes from our houses and through the trees in the middle of no where we see this beautiful freshly paved cement pathway with lampposts every 100 feet just lighting this pathway up. It was beckoning to us...and so we found the nearest exit. We drove around for a while through darkness until the road came to a dead end and the path began. We got out and started walking on this path through the trees and these beautiful wide open fields until eventually it ends at a little small town after a couple miles. At this point its like 2am and a small town like this nothing should be open except for this pizzeria....which is odd...so we go in. It is empty except for the older gentleman behind the counter. We order and start eating...then another older customer walks in.

The gentleman behind the counter and this customer do a double take at each other and then smile. Both of them run around the counter and embrace......"Mario!" "Stefano!" "What has it been 40 years?" "They talk the whole time about their childhood and growing up back in Italy. We think what are the chances we would be here..at this moment....seeing friends reunited after 40 years, just plain, odd. My friend and I, we finish up and we head back down the brightly lit path and back to the car and call it a night. Ever since that night my friend and I tried to find that brightly lit path, but to no avail we haven't seen it since from the highway or driving down that road. In the small town the pizzeria is there, but it closes at 10pm, so no explanation why it would be open at 2am. Just plain odd and something we never could explain, experiencing an unlikely moment to watch friends be reunited after 40 years.

Image credits: sichbumba

#29

I was staying at a friends place in the financial district in NYC. They were out of town so I was babysitting their cat. At some point in the late evening I realized I hadn’t eaten dinner so I went out to find something fast. Hurricane sandy had recently come through so many shops and restaurants were still closed and in recovery mode so my search turned up nothing of interest. On my way back to the apartment to order delivery I walked by a place with a woman standing outside and she said “Free pizza.”

Now I’m not one to ever turn away from those words so I turned to her and she repeated the phrase while opening the door to a small pizzeria. I went inside and sure enough there was free pizza. I ended up getting two large slices and headed back home for the night, stopping to give one to the doorman at the apartment complex.

The next day I walked the entirety of the financial district and found absolutely no trace of this pizzeria. To this day I still call it my ghost pizza story.

Image credits: Baelgul

#30

I was relocating across Texas and, as I normally do, was driving through the night to skip traffic and because it’s more serene that way. I was driving straight through central Texas going northwest, so seeing the hill country change to desert in the full moon was super cool. Anyways, I was driving with my (now ex) wife and we were running low on gas. Luckily, we were pulling into a tiny no-name town and we could see an old gas station come around the bend. This encounter happened at about 2am.

Now, this town only has one road, and this station was right at the edge of town at the end of it. When I say old, I mean very old; the type that you have no option of prepaying, you simply flip up the handle on the machine and you hear the pump inside start struggling to get the gas from the reservoir. It had the old style tick readers too, not a thing electrical on it.

I, being the young man I was, had never seen one before, so I walked into the store to buy the gas before I pumped. The store only had one light in the far back on, and I almost thought it was closed since it was barely brighter inside than it was out in the moonlight. Upon entering, I saw the place was deserted; no customers, no workers, nothing. However, there was an odd tune playing on someone’s radio that I couldn’t place. An old sounding, upbeat piano piece was playing somewhere around the corner inside, and I heard shuffling once I walked closer to the source.

This place made me feel scared. Not the “woah this is creepy” scared, but the “all hairs are on end, something is seriously wrong here but I can’t figure it out” scared. As I turned the corner, I saw a young man standing next to a large radio and... dancing. His dancing, though, was extremely off-putting and seriously didn’t match the tune at all.

Though the radio was cranking out what sounding like ragtime, this guy was running his hands up and down his body and pretty much “feeling himself” with his eyes closed in what looked like bliss. He was going far slower than the music and definitely wasn’t on tempo. For some reason, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even move. I was in a trance as every part of me screamed to turn and leave.

Finally, I said “excuse me, I just need some gas.”

The guy kept dancing.

I said it a little louder, and he finally slowed down a bit and opened his eyes, and focused on me. But it was like he was looking at a finely cooked steak. He was looking almost through me, and silently walked to the register, not saying anything. I said “uh, just $20 please.” He, again, didn’t say anything and just stood behind the ancient register, so I just figured maybe he didn’t speak the language or was embarrassed I caught him dancing, so I laid the money on the counter and went outside hoping he’d turn on the pump.

I filled up, told my wife about the weird ass scene in there, and turned off the pump to kill the horrible grinding noise from the interior pump fighting against gravity to get the gas up.

Weird thing is, when we were leaving, I looked back in the window and the guy was still standing there behind the counter. This may sound fine, but my money was still on the counter in front of him. It was like he was a robot who just turned off once I left.

This is where it gets super weird. A couple months later, I was driving back to San Antonio to visit family, and we figured we’d stop at that old gas station to see it in the daytime since it had become somewhat of a running joke between us. We pulled into this tiny town, and... the thing was gone. The lot it sat on at the end of the road wasn’t even there. It was just grass. No rubble, no old pump, no lighting, nothing. It was like somebody picked it up and moved it. It looked like nothing had been there for years.

Still get freaked out thinking about it.

Image credits: Sterling_-_Archer

#31

My friends and I saw saw something very scary while camping. All of us forgot to bring matches, so my friend went looking for people to give us some. When he cane back, he told us he found this abandoned campsite he wanted to show us. When we got there it was seriously weird. It had obviously been a family staying there, since one of the tents had two girls names labeled on it. If they left the campsite, they did so in a hurry, since several items were left behind. The creepiest thing was every tent there was slashed open down the middle from top to bottom. If it was a bear or other animal, I thought the cuts wouldn’t have been as clean, and there might of been three slash marks instead of one. I’m very glad we left that day. EDIT: So I see a few of you have questions. I am currently driving to another city, but I will provide more details as soon as I’m available.

EDIT 2: Made it to my destination, here are some answers to your questions

This was at Dinkey Creek in California.

Things left behind (besides the tents) were a chair, and some cookware. There were also toiletries inside the tents.

No one has been missing in that area since 2008, and our trip was in 2014.

I don’t believe we reported it. I think we were going to report it to the park ranger or something, but we never did.

I actually misspoke, as we left the day after the campsite was found. The friend that found it took us to it the next day.

We did find matches! Some random stranger gave them to my friend after he explained that we didn’t forget, we just were all depending on each other to bring them.

Image credits: Pickingupthepieces

#32

There was this ramen place that I got recommended by a local in the old east side of Tokyo. We ate there together. Didn't drink or anything. The place's location was straightforward from the gas station. Went back there for another ramen the next night and it just wasn't there. I circled the neighborhood and it....just wasn't there.

Best ramen I have ever had to date.

#33

I was studying abroad in Italy my freshman year of college, and of group of friends and I were trying to find this bus station in Rome. We went to where Google Maps led us, and the building looked like it was an office building, of some sort. So we’re thinking, y’know, “Okay, maybe it’s in the basement.”

So we go into this building and get into the elevator, and there’s no button for the basement, so we’re like, okaaayyy, maybe if we go to the top floor we’ll be able to have the vantage point to see the bus station from where we are.

So we go to the top floor and walk out, and we’re greeted by this woman who’s standing behind the counter at what appears to be a Chinese restaurant. So we go in, and there’s like, her, and a couple of kids playing on the floor near her. And we look around, and the windows are totally blacked out. And this woman looks at us and, in a super thick Russian accent says in English, “What are you doing here?”

So by this time two of us are sufficiently freaked out, but the fearless one in our group goes, “We’re trying to find the bus station. Do you know where it is?”

And the woman answers, “It’s in the basement.”

And my friend says, “Well, there’s no button for the basement in the elevator.”

And the woman says, “No, you have to take the stairs.”

So we thank her and leave super fast, go down the stairs pretty quickly, find the station and get on our bus. And for whatever reason, as we’re pulling away, all of us decide to look out the rear window of the bus and see if we can spot the building. But it’s not there. Just a regular old bus station.

To this day we all maintain that we were in the twilight zone.

#34

I’m a financial auditor for a small firm in central TX, and we have a lot of clients along US-MX border towns. Anyways, first out of town job and I’m in Laredo. Very industrial border town. Our client offices out of an industrial park that is mainly warehouses and such, tons of 18 wheelers driving around everywhere.

Well, we find out on Thursday that the company is taking Friday off (all office staff will be gone, very small business) for a wedding of one of the owners, and the admin who was supposed to tell is was out on medical leave. If they’re not there, we can’t really do anything because we don’t have access to files, so we decided to stay at the hotel and leave the next morning. We’ve been working long days so me and my two coworkers decide to leave at 11 to sleep in.

After a stressful week, and being in the middle of nowhere for so long, I walked from our hotel to this little sports bar near by. I got to feeling really good and decided to get some food and go to sleep. I call a Uber/Lyft and the guy has to go around the highway and take a u-turn to get to the frontage road where the hotel is. He’s coming up on the road that leads to the industrial park, just a little way down the road I see a little Mexican place with the OPEN sign, so I pointed and asked him to stop cause now I’m very well drunk and hungry. He drops me off, I tip him on the app and go inside.

It’s one dude behind the counter and a few small tables, hole in the wall place. I got enchiladas verdes (and killed it in minutes), paid, and asked to use the restroom. The man behind the cojntet just pointed and smiled, which wasn’t weird cause that’s what most people did when I spoke my english out there. I will always remember this bathroom, because it was like walking into a different building. Granite countertop, one of those flat neck sinks, a spotless toilet and it smelled like it had just been cleaned with fabuloso. It stood out like a sore thumb, in a good way.

Anyways, I order a Lyft and I’m waiting outside for like 20 minutes cause rideshare isn’t so popular there and the dude was coming from far away. Right as the car is approaching me, I see all the lights shut off at once and I hear the door lock. It’s about 1am now.

Wake up in the AM, and we get on the road and are coming up on the same road where I saw the restaurant except....nothing. There’s an empty concrete pad that’s bigger than I remember the restaurant being, and nothing else. In the grass right next to the concrete pad is a toilet. It looked pretty new to me but I was about 50 feet out and going 50mph so who knows. I like to think it belonged to the ghost restaurant with a fancy bathroom

#35

Went to Singapore with my mom. Went to a mall (forgot what it is, sorry), and went for lunch. The food court food floor was cylindrical in shape, with a glass area in the middle or something. We settled down on a pretty nice restaurant, not too crowded but not too deserted, good meal.

Two days later we went back there and wanted to eat there again. It was nowhere to be found. We walked the perimeter of the circular room several laps but didn't find it. Checked the mall map and it's not there either.

Either Singaporeans are crazy fast at closing down a shop and opening a new one in its place, or it's just a very mysterious occurrence.

#36

A group of friends and I decided to take a small Saturday afternoon roadtrip into the backcountry of South Carolina. We figured we'd just drive around, head southwest, and see if we could find some antique shops, cemeteries, abandoned buildings and the like. We pile into my car and start driving. It's about an hour of nothing, just some light conversation and southern pine forests.

We pass a few horse farms, some quaint old mill towns, and a few gas stations, but nothing interesting yet. 2pm rolls around and we decide we wanted to get something to eat. As a rule, we always like to try local diners and restaurants, so we kept driving until we saw a faded road sign for a town. It was about five miles down the road and we figured that's good enough.

As we're driving through the town, we notice there's no one out. No cars on the roads, no people on the streets, and no real houses. The streets are lined with abandoned and boarded-up warehouses, shops with broken windows, and a few broken down cars from the 90's. The further we go, the worse it gets. We finally get to a diner that's right off their main street.

It looks like there's about ten people eating inside and there's a few cars in the parking lot. Seems like they're open. Here's where it starts to get weird.

We open the door and step in. As soon as we clear the threshhold, everyone stares at us. It's like in movies where the record scratches on the jukebox and everyone looks, except far more uncomfortable. In the middle of the diner is a large table with six people around it, who all turn back to their food and start whipser-talking. The waittress nervously shuffles up to us and quietly asks how many.

My friend Chris takes the lead and says "four" in just a normal speaking voice. Everyone looks at us again and the waitress (who looks barely older than 16) recoils, but takes us to our table. She's sat us in a basic 4-top near the large table in the middle. She takes our drink orders and leaves.

Once she goes, we all whisper about how weird that was. While we're talking, the line cook is just staring at us with this violent look in his eyes. We all figure out what we want and wait. We sit in awkward silence for about ten minutes before the waitress comes back.

She takes our orders and disappears into the back of the diner, leaving us alone in the dining room with the people at the other table. It gives us some time to look them over.

They're a basical southern family. Chubby, haggard looking wife. Husband with sun-leathered skin and oil stains on his coveralls. Three children, all girls, all in nice Sunday dresses. And then her.

The other woman was dressed like the younger girls, but looked very much in her forties. She wore a red, paisley patterned dress, with frilled lace at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was long and stringy and covered the bulk of her round face. To the left of her was a doll, seated in a high-chair for babies. The woman would sometimes lean in towards the doll and whisper something, then giggle.

Soon the waitress dropped food off at their table, but set a meal down for the doll too. She commented on how pretty the woman's daughter was and left. About ten minutes later she came back with our food, silently left it, gave us the sideeye, and walked away.

The waitress came back to refill the other table's water, where she asked everyone how the food was, but asked the doll too. When she asked the doll, she spoke in a baby voice. The woman then picked up the doll, held it in front of her face, and spoke in a little girl's voice. She was being the doll.

My other friend looked at me with the most terrified, wide-eyed expression. She worked with disturbed children as a therapist in a court mandated facility. We shoveled our mediocre food down and my friend Chris just dumped forty dollars on the table and we left.

As we were leaving the town, Chris was looking for any sort of town name. I was checking to make sure we weren't being followed. This happened about six years ago and we still can't find that town. No one remembers the name, or the road it was off of, but we remember being there and what the diner looked like.

Image credits: PancakeParthenon

#37

When I was 7 (all potential credibility has just been abandoned, I'm sure) I rode my bike into a tunnel under a two lane road, when I emerged I was in a desert. The path was still there, it went straight off into the desert. The were a few cactus plants, it was hot and sunny. I quickly turned around in went back through the tunnel and emerged into my own home town park where it was late afternoon with lots of west coast trees and it was November. I looked through the tunnel and could see the other side of the park with no cactus, just normal trees

Image credits: nemesis_of_thyme

#38

Cyberjaya, Malaysia. I was opening a call center so working nights to match US hours. Our typical lunch spot was closed for a few days, one guy says he knows a place close by we pile in his car and off we go into the jungle. This was 10, 15 years or so ago. At that time if you headed towards KL it stayed pretty urban or sub urban, you head some other directions it got dark fast. We are out on these roads street lights go from regular intervals to what seemed like one every 5KM it quickly becomes obvious the driver is lost. He's stopped looking for a place to eat and is outright just looking for the way back to the office. Then we saw this house, with a counter where the car park should be just lighting up the jungle around it we pulled in mostly for directions.

Turns out this was a random little mamak stall built onto these peoples house. They operated for the farms in the area were i the process of shutting down but stayed open to feed us. Out in the middle of the jungle I had some of the freshest and bomb ass Indo-Chinese food. They were even able to give us directions to get back to the office area. We tried to find that spot again like a week later, thought we reversed the directions, nothing but trees.

Image credits: tdasnowman

#39

I was hiking with some friends in Colorado. It was a beautiful sunny day, up until we were in the middle of the trail. Then it started pouring, and we weren’t especially prepared. Still though, a little tired, a little delirious from the night before, we trekked on.

We hadn’t seen another hiker in a half an hour or so, but after a while a couple of guys came the opposite way of the trail. They reassured us “the cabin” would reach us soon. Not sure what that meant, we kept going.

After about an hour, we came upon a small cabin that looked ancient. We walked in. Inside, it was clear that this was from a very, very long time ago. Looking to the corner table, two children were eating bread and peanut butter. Next to them were (presumably) their parents, speaking to a man with skin so wrinkled it looked like he had emerged from a decade spent in the bathtub.

Nobody acknowledged our entrance. The moment I stepped in I got a feeling like I was in purgatory, or like the black lodge in Twin Peaks.

I turned around and saw a newspaper clipping attached to the door. In the center, a picture of this old man. The headline read: “109 [Native American tribe name, can’t recall] Man loves to draw”.

After reading that everyone exchanged weird looks, and we left after 5 minutes but what felt like days. Nothing really supernatural, but I still get the feeling of that cabin every once in a while, a year later.

Image credits: [deleted]

#40

I got engaged to my (now) wife some 20 years ago, and I decided to wear a traditional Chinese silk jacket for my wedding. Problem is, at the time I was living in rural Yorkshire, England and these were not easy to find, nor was it yet possible to buy them over the Internet and have them shipped to me. I spent a few months trying to find places that sold them in big cities nearby but without much success. Then, whilst on a shopping trip into my nearby town, we walked past a shop that only sold these Chinese jackets - nothing else. It was owned by a Chinese couple, which was remarkable as virtually no Chinese people lived in the area and I couldn’t begin to imagine what their target market was. They stocked exactly the jacket I was looking for, in my size, and I bought it on the spot, and wore it to my wedding. Next time I was in town I looked for the shop, but couldn’t find it - presumably it shut down because who else was buying Chinese silk jackets in a town without Chinese people?

#41

My husband and I were driving on a rural Iowa highways late at night a few years back. We had to stop to find a place to pee and get gas, but since it was rural Midwest we weren’t exactly spoiled for choices. We took the first turn towards a town we could, but after driving for 15 minutes we still hadn’t reached a town. Just as we were about to give up and turn around, we rounded the corner into the town. Graves covered hills on both sides of the road and it stretched on for several miles until we reached the town: a gas station and a couple houses at the intersection. Needless to say, my husband and I sucked in our bladders and hightailed it back to the highway. No way you’d catch us stopping at the graveyard gas station in the middle of the night

Image credits: quinnthequeer