Our cars are one of the top places we go to get some me time. Aside from our homes, a car can give us the solace we sometimes need. But, what happens when you encounter something truly disturbing on a peaceful ride home?
#1 Eyes of Fire
An owl standing on the carcass of a large buck in the mountains at 5:00 a.m. All I saw as I approached were two glowing red orbs, which slowly became a huge dark form standing on the edge of the road with eyes of fire. Then I got close enough and this massive owl just gave me the death stare as I went past. It freaked me out for the rest of the drive.
#2 In the Ditch
Someone I knew came across a jeep that had just crashed into the ditch on a highway at night. He was the first on scene, so he called 911 and ran down into the ditch. The driver, who was badly injured, had been tossed from the car. This guy held him and the driver passed in his arms. The weirdest part was that he found out that the driver was his cousin, but he couldn’t recognize him.
#3 One Way
I was driving down a two-lane divided highway. I came up to a couple of semis and went into the left lane to pass. I did a shoulder check to get back into the right lane when I saw headlights in front of me… in my lane. The car was going the wrong way. I managed to swerve into the ditch. I thought my wife's scream would be the last thing I ever heard. The semis all pulled to the shoulder to come check on us. We didn't see the car anywhere and I think they just kept going. I had to pull into a gas station after and collect myself.
#4 Montana Mountains
I was following a grey Toyota Tundra in a massive blizzard through Montana. He was going pretty quickly most of the way but must have been unfamiliar with how steep the final few miles were. He got away from me as I slowed down to about 35. Not five minutes later I passed his tire marks in the fresh snow that went off the side of the mountain. I pulled over and looked down to see his truck upside down and on fire about 300 yards down. I called 911. He was hurt pretty badly but pulled through.
#5 Motorized Scooter
I had just finished driving for Uber and was going down the access road to my home around 3:00 a.m. I saw a body lying completely still next to one of those motorized scooters. I pulled over and flagged down his buddies, who were partying and kept going without realizing their friend was lying on the ground. An ambulance arrived and took the kid away, but I found out if he made it.
#6 Tailing Women
I was in Colorado going towards Utah and pulled over at a gas station at 8:00 p.m. I noticed a couple of attractive women pumping gas. On the other side of the pump was the man in his late 40s, just staring at them. I walked inside to grab some food and when I came out I saw both the younger women's car and the older man's truck were gone.
After driving for a few hours, I pulled over at yet another gas station. The young women were there again, getting gas and eating some food on a picnic table. It looked like they had been there for a while. I didn't see any sign of the man in the truck, but I can't say I was looking very hard for it. And this is where things got creepy.
I can't say I didn't stare at them a bit because they were attractive women. As I watched them leave, I saw some headlights in the next parking lot turn on. It was the same man as before. Once again, he left when the women left. I thought it was a bit weird, but it could have just been a coincidence since there weren't many places to pull over. I left a few minutes later and caught up to them. This guy was riding their bumper with his high beams on.
I decided to slow down and stayed a distance behind the truck. 10 minutes or so later, the women pulled over to most likely get this guy off them. With a sigh of relief, I saw the truck keep going and I continued on my way. About one mile down the road, though, the guy just pulled off to the side of the highway.
So, I pulled off a mile or so down the road again. Sure enough, the women drove by and the guy was still following them. At this point, we’re out in the middle of nowhere and too many coincidences have happened. I called the cops to alert them and about 15 minutes the cops pulled the guy over. I may have just seen too many movies and overreacted, but you never know.
#7 Empty Street
After dropping me off at my house around 2:00 a.m., my friend called me and told me to lock my doors. He said he saw a man standing in the middle of the road and as he passed him, the man kept staring through him. Not at him really, but like there was something behind him in his back seat. He also said he could barely make out anything about the man other than his large eyes and trench coat. What really terrified me is that this happened on a street that only my family lives on and no one would have been out that night. Also, we're a solid mile and a half from the nearest neighbor. It freaked me right out.
#8 Deer in Headlights
I slammed the brakes once because I saw a deer in my peripheral vision. Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that it was a mounted deer head on a stick in the middle of the woods. I did a complete 180 after that. I slammed the gas after I realized that and just booked it out of there without looking back.
#9 We All Float
I used to deliver pizza and often had deliveries right at midnight when we closed. One time, late at night, I was driving back to the store through a small neighborhood. Up ahead, I saw something. It was perfectly spherical and quite shiny. The thing was also hovering about six feet off the ground, not moving at all.
I pulled up very slowly and it still didn’t move. I still couldn’t comprehend what I was looking at. At this point, my curiosity overrode my fear. So, I hopped out of the car and slowly walked up to it. I was right in front of it and still couldn’t understand what I was looking at. I reached out and touched it. It was a balloon. It was one of those foil birthday balloons with the street lights shining on it, making it look weird in the middle of the night on an empty road.
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#10 Red Pinpricks
My dad was driving at night and I was looking out the window when I saw two red pinpricks in the cornfield. It seemed to follow us. I told my dad about it and he said, in the calmest tone, "Those are cornfield demons. Stay in the car and you'll be okay." Cue me freaking out when he got out of the car to check a tire before getting back in. I'm still not sure if that was an actual thing or if he was using a situation to his advantage to teach me to not do anything stupid like that at night. Either way, it worked, and I still have no idea what those two pinpricks were.
#11 Frog Legs
I worked at a factory out in the boonies. One road leading out there had a pond on one side and a marshy, scummy wetland on the other side. One night, I was heading in and the whole road was a carpet of peepers. I had frog guts coating the underside of my car. It stank like crazy when my shift was off. I replaced the muffler around Christmas and there were still frog legs stuck under there.
#12 Cow Spotting
I was fetching someone from someone’s workplace. I had to go through some fields and some parts of the road were dark. I saw a thin, long object, wiggling at an upright position at the side of the road in front of me. I totally freaked me out and thought I was experiencing something extraordinary. As I got closer, I realized it was the tail of a cow. It must've escaped from some field and was hanging around at the side of the road. The cow itself was black, the tail slightly lighter in color. That's why I only saw the tail moving first without seeing the whole cow first.
#13 Roadside Man
It was 3:00 a.m. on a lonely road and I was the passenger. We drove down the road and saw an elderly man wearing only scandalous clothing and high heels. He was just casually walking down the road. My friend who was driving didn't believe me and went back around. Sure enough, he saw him and we were like, “What the heck is this…?”
#14 Black Trench Coat
I dropped my girlfriend off the night we saw The Mothman Prophecies. It wasn't a super scary movie, but it had some scares. Anyway, I took the interstate home. On the way, there was a curve where there weren't any lights. There was just a dark stretch of interstate. As I came around the bend, there was a guy in a black trench coat walking along the side of the road.
It was about 3:00 a.m. and I guess I startled him. So, when my headlights hit him, he whipped around and, I swear, he stared me right in the eyes. My heart jumped into my throat. The whole event lasted maybe two seconds at most, but it had my heart racing. It wasn’t paranormal, but it was definitely scary for me.
#15 On the Run
A hitchhiker almost leapt out in front of my car on a dark forest road late at night. The woman literally popped out of nowhere. I had to drift into the oncoming lane. Luckily, there was no one else around. I read a police report that said she ended up getting hit minutes after I drove by. She was running from the police. I can't imagine what the driver who hit her was thinking. I hope she’s alright. But, it was pretty creepy.
#16 Bus Ride
I was on the public bus heading to my car after classes. I was just minding my own business, looking out the window with my headphones in. Then, I saw this middle-aged man riding along on one of those scooters. The front wheel must have hit a large hole or something because he immediately launched over the front of it, face planted and fully scorpioned. The bus continued moving forward but I kept trying to look back to see if he was okay. I’ll never forget seeing how injured he was.
#17 Keeping Watch
I live in a really safe country and a really safe city. I'm a photographer and I sometimes come home between 2:00 to 4:00 a.m. Back then, my parents lived in an attached group of houses built into a hill and below the houses were our parking spots. It was a really quiet area with nobody around after midnight.
I parked the car because I wanted to get my gear and walk up to my door. Just then, I saw someone walking between my neighbor's cars. I asked him what he was doing and he came towards me. He only had shorts and a t-shirt (it was about -5°C out) on. He then asked me what was up. At first, I freaked out because he was walking up to me aggressively, but then I saw his pupils. They were as wide as dinner plates and he was very skinny.
I told him to leave me and the neighborhood alone, and go home. He said okay, but I stayed to watch him. He went across the road to a group of houses and started snooping around there. After seeing this, I’d had enough. So, I called the police and they took him with him because he refused to identify himself.
#18 Learning to Drive
When I first learned to drive, I was working for my dad. One day after work, he asked if I wanted to drive home. I got on the highway and headed home, but I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a guy on a motorcycle was coming up behind me. I thought nothing of it as I was sure he’d pass or slow down. I looked ahead again and a few moments later I heard metal scraping against the ground.
I looked into the rearview and the bike was on its side, spinning down the highway. Behind it, I could see the biker on his back, then he disappeared under the car behind him. I was so freaked out driving after that, I didn't want to drive for weeks following the incident. I eventually got over it, but I can still see the guy in my mind.
#19 On the Freeway
I was driving on a near-empty freeway at midnight when I saw a weird flickering light on the freeway. It was super dark and there were barely any lights besides headlights. So, I slowed down a bit and merged a lane over. As I passed, I got a good look and it was a car absolutely on fire. I was a little shocked and ended up driving a bit past it before I really saw what it was. By the time I thought about pulling over, it was already far behind me and a cop sped past me on the other side.
#20 Say a Prayer
Before my parents moved to where I am, I’d often visit my home town up north. It was a 10-hour drive all on the same highway. I made that trip several times and there was almost always some tragic crash at least once during the drive. I’m not super religious but I got in the habit of saying a prayer for them and their families. I hate seeing that.
#21 Stretch of Highway
I was driving home late one night on a dark stretch of the highway. Suddenly, a body was in front of me. I tried to swerve out of the way but it was too late. My bumper was hanging on the ground. The guy passed away. I went to a nearby gas station not knowing what to do because I was 18 at the time. When the tow truck pulled my car up, there was a lot of damage. I couldn't get that image out of my head Apparently, a driver with five previous accidents had hit a guy on the motorcycle prior. For years after, I had serious depression and thought about it every night.
#22 Hollywood Blvd.
I was a very young woman driving home after partying at about 2:00 a.m. in Hollywood. I was pulling up to a stop sign on Cahuenga, about three blocks from Hollywood Blvd., when a bunch of guys began to casually stroll onto the crosswalk, coming from both sides. I hit the gas and ran the stop sign without even thinking. They cursed and ran after me, but those boys were ready to rob me. My instincts took over before I even realized what was happening.
#23 Shadow People
My wife and I use to take road trips for vacations a lot. Oftentimes, to get to the next destination, I would drive through the middle of the night on lonely stretches of road. I've seen shadowy figures a few times and it made me uneasy every single time. Sometimes it looked like a person, sometimes it was like an animal.
#24 Running in Circles
I was once driving home for a couple of hours of sleep. It was about four in the morning and it wasn't dawn yet, but still pitch black. I turned a corner, and suddenly, someone ran into the street right in front of my car and stopped. I stopped and waited, but they didn’t move. Cautiously, I tried to drive around, but they screamed, ran up and slammed their hands on the hood of my car.
With them so close, I realized they are totally filthy. They stared at me for a moment, then proceeded to run in wide circles, kind of listing to one side than the other. They kept doing this in front of my car. After about two minutes of this, he listed hard to one side. He was far enough that I felt safe quickly driving around him.
#25 Rogue Moose
I was vacationing in Newfoundland and we ended up leaving dinner kind of late but were en route to our stop for the evening. I was hoping to make it before dusk, but had to drive about 30 minutes in the twilight. There’s nothing scarier than coming around a corner in the road and seeing a moose standing on the shoulder right next to the car, and realizing it almost ended your life.
#26 Highway Construction
I was driving home one night from my fiancé’s house. It was pretty dark and I was cruising at around 75, heading over a slight hill. It was just big enough that you couldn’t see the other side.I got to the top and started making my way down the hill. Suddenly, in my headlight view, I saw a giant construction vehicle with all of its lights turned, parked in the left lane of the highway.
I really, seriously, prayed that no one hit that parked construction vehicle on the highway that day. I narrowly avoided smacking right into the back of that thing. I don’t know how the Cherokee I was driving at the time handled the sharp turn I made. I Immediately called Florida highway patrol and told them about it. I hope they got to it before someone got hurt.
#27 Trying to Swerve
Me and some friends were going out one night. We were driving down a pretty big city street with about two lanes on each side. This dude was riding a bike against traffic and my friend tried to swerve, but the guy swerved the same direction as us. He got hit and did a faceplant right into the windshield on the passenger side where I was sitting.
He flipped over the car and was just lying in the middle of the road. I don't know what shape the guy was in but it didn't look good. They landed a helicopter in the middle of the road and took him to the hospital. Witnesses stopped and waited with us, verifying that it wasn't our fault and the cops let us go on our way.
#28 Car Hijacks
I was working the night shift, driving home. I saw a child right in the middle of the street. I left immediately because I knew about those car hijacks. It took twice as long to get home, though. I did call the cops and they caught the guys mid act. There was a husband, wife, and child. The only reason I was informed is because my friend is a cop.
#29 Beautiful Clouds
I was driving from New Hampshire to Colorado. We had to go through Kansas and never heard of a "supercell," but apparently those beautiful clouds turn into swirly traps called tornadoes. Well, as night hit and it became more difficult to drive, we slowed down. It was hard to see through the pouring rain. Sure enough, I looked outside and in between lightning flashes, a tornado was swirling in motion about a mile away from us. I've never been so scared. I tell you, I won’t go back to Kansas in a Subaru Outback. If I go back, it’ll be in a tank.
#30 Deer Crossing
After seeing The Ring 2 with friends one night, I had just dropped one of them off at their house in the middle of nowhere. I was driving down a dark rural road and I turned a corner going fairly fast. There were about five deers in the middle of the road. I was able to stop before hitting them, but I couldn't go anywhere until they moved.
So, I sat there until they finished crossing the road. If anyone remembers the terrible movie that was The Ring 2, there’s this scene where they get stopped by a deer and the deer attacks. That was all I could think about as I waited for the deer to cross. Realistically, it probably took less than a minute, but it felt like an hour. Eventually, they all pranced across and I kept driving. But, I still remember it and it still comes up in my nightmares sometimes.
#31 Into the Median
I was driving on the expressway around two in the morning once when I saw a semi crash into a car. The car wound up crashing into the median. It basically folded into itself and was beyond destroyed. I can’t imagine the person driving that car survived what happened. It was incredibly sad and terrifying to see.
#32 Over the Limit
I was coming home late from a midnight shift. It was 6:00 a.m., but still dark. I had to make a left onto my road but needed to stop because of traffic. In my rearview mirror, I saw a truck coming up and he looked like he was going fast. I blinked my stop lights a bit to alert him. He wasn't going to stop. This guy zoomed around me, going way over the speed limit and nearly ran himself in the ditch. To this day, I still don't know how he avoided missing the road sign that was there.
#33 Wrong Side of the Road
I was once driving home after a get together. I saw a set of headlights that seemed a bit funny to me. I noticed that it was from a car driving the wrong way down the road. I swerved at the very last second. As it turned out, the driver wasn’t fit to drive due to his partying and he hit a van carrying a family. Three people lost their lives, but the driver lived.
#34 Unexplained Creature
I was driving up a canyon at 1:00 a.m., on my way to my parents cabin. I came around a curve and a man jump in front of me and over the guard rail. I told my parents and they assured me it was a deer. I’m no wizard, but I can surely tell the anatomical differences between a deer and a human. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I still can’t explain it.
#35 Wile E. Coyote
I forgot where we were going but it was me and my mother driving back home from somewhere far away. We had stopped at a light or something and I was tired, about to fall asleep. That's when I heard my mom scream. I looked up to see a coyote that looked like a wolf sticking his head through the car window. Then it just left. My mom and I laughed it off and just put up the windows.
#36 Roads in Norway
This was in Norway. I was in the passenger seat and we were driving down the road. It was pretty much pitch black except for the headlights. After a few minutes, I just saw a dark figure, about two meters tall and a meter or two wide. I panicked, and once it turned around we realized that it was a moose. It scared the bejesus out of me and my mom, but it walked away after it saw us. I was really glad nothing bad happened.
#37 Desert Drive
A friend of mine was on a family road trip one time a few years ago. I don’t remember where they were. Anyhow, while they were driving through the desert at night, they happened to pass by a burning cross a little ways off the road. I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s pretty darn creepy in my opinion.
#38 Two Days Without Sleep
I went almost two straight days without sleep. As you can imagine, sleep deprivation can mess with your head. I remember seeing this giant 50-foot tall hitchhiker, which turned out to be nothing more than a tree swaying in the wind. Then, after seeing what looked like a 747 landing in front of me, I decided it was time to pull over and take a nap.
#39 Random Car
I was going down a long stretch of road. There wasn’t so much as a driveway for 100 miles in either direction. Late at night, in this middle-of-nowhere road, there was a car on the side of the road that was on fire. I don't mean an engine fire, I mean it was completely engulfed in flames. There wasn’t a single person or car anywhere around it. I hadn't even driven past a car in over an hour.
#40 The Passageway
It wasn’t me driving, but I once made a joke about how someone was probably on this creepy passageway we were driving down. We then passed by it and someone was actually there. They had dark hair and were in a long white dress. They just sort of stood there, smiling. I hate passing by there now, but I have to check it every time.
#41 Headless Doll
It was about 3:00 a.m. and I was driving back to Dallas from a field party. There were a lot of long dirt roads with houses few and far between. As I passed a particularly broken-down-looking farmhouse, there was a little girl standing at the end of the driveway, holding a headless doll. She was just watching our car drive by. It made my blood go cold.
#42 Asleep at the Wheel
I wasn't driving, but the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Their foot was still on the gas pedal. We were coming up to a curve, but the person in the passenger seat was also asleep. I had to unbuckle and reach up to steer the car through the turn. We were going rather fast, but it could have been worse. They woke up soon after, but it was terrifying.
#43 Driving in Transylvania
I was driving a truck at night through the mountains of Transylvania, coming from Odessa and heading to Budapest. The roads had been completely empty for hours and the route I took was rather unfortunate, narrow and twisty. It also went through mountains covered with massive trees. I was getting sleepy, but there was absolutely nowhere to park.
Just after another bend, it seemed like a wall of old, derelict, gothic crosses appeared. They almost gave me a heart attack. At that point, I was already creeped out enough not to look into the sleeper to check if I was still alone in the cab. I had no trouble staying awake for the next couple of hours until I reached civilization and clocked off at the first bus stop.
#44 Sleepwalker
On a somewhat remote highway near where I was born, we were driving back into town one night. There was a lady in a white sundress standing by the entrance to her driveway staring at us. This happened around 2:30 a.m., which was creepy and made me wonder if she was sleepwalking or something.
#45 Punching the Gas
When I was a kid in the 1960s, we lived near Trenton. There was still frequent downtown shopping back then. My friend's mom went downtown with her three kids to buy clothes. On the way home, while she was stopped at a red light, this big guy stepped off the curb, walked right up to her door and yanked it open.
She didn't know what his intentions were, but she didn't stop to think about it. She punched the gas pedal and the Riviera's big V8 lit up the tires. Off they went, with the guy still hanging on the open door. He was cursing and screaming at her to stop. She went through three red lights before she slammed on the brakes, after which he fell to the pavement, hard. She then drove away.
#46 Zombie Deer
I was driving home around 10:00 p.m., down a road that’s famous for deer running across and getting hit. I went past a group of deer, a couple of them were watching me, and a couple of them were running alongside the road. When I looked out my window at the ones running alongside the road, there was one that looked starved. Its ribs were all visible through it’s skin, but it’s skin was also rotting and you could see underneath. I'm a very squeamish person and this almost had me throwing up. Look out for the zombie deer in NKY because they’ve been spotted by some classmates as well.
#47 Masked Driver
Several years ago, I was driving to meet up with some friends of mine. It was a Saturday morning, around 1:00 a.m., so there weren’t too many cars out. As I made a left at the end of my street, a car had made a left from the main road onto the road I was on. So, we were on a straight path to pass each other.
As the car came up, I noticed the driver had an unusually white head. As we passed each other, we were both driving slower. As I got up next to the car, it was a skull. At first I thought it was a mask, but the skull turned and looked at me. When he did, his eyes were wide open and then he opened his mouth at me. At the time, it scared the living heck out of me, but looking back at it now, it had to be some top of the line mask the driver was wearing. It would probably still scare me though if I wasn't expecting it.
#48 Thousands of Visitors
A few years ago, I was in a camper in Greece with my family one night. We heard some strange noises from the outside, so we turned on the headlights. It was mosquitoes. Thousands and thousands of them. We could barely see anything outside. The windscreen was covered with them and some were getting in somewhere. We never drove away so quickly from a place.
#49 Santa Monica Mountains
I was driving in the Santa Monica Mountains delivering a Christmas tree. It wasn’t completely dark, but the stars were starting to come out. I turned the corner on a windy road and right in front of me was a mountain lion. I was shocked and humbled by how large it was and how fast it could end me. Thankfully, I was in a car.
#50 Sheep Eyes
The incident that comes to mind is when I encountered hundreds of glowing sheep eyes. I used to be a pizza delivery driver. My GPS took me to some place off the main roads. The GPS then told me to turn left into darkness, so I put on my high beams. Literally hundreds of sheep were then staring at my car’s headlights.
