I used to deliver pizza, and often had deliveries right at midnight when we closed. One time, late at night, I’m driving back to the store through a small neighborhood. Up ahead I see something. It’s perfectly spherical bright/shiny… Thing, just hovering about 6 feet off the ground. Not moving at all.

I pull up very slowly. Still doesn’t move. Still can’t comprehend what I’m looking at. Just this shiny hovering orb in the road at midnight.

At this point my curiosity has overridden my fear. I’m the guy in the horror movie who dies first because I just gotta know. Either I die or I get a cool story, right?

So I hop out of the car, and slowly walk up to it. I’m right in front of it and still can’t understand what I’m seeing.

So I reach out and touch it.

It’s a balloon.

One of those foil birthday balloons with the streetlights shining on it making it look weird out of context in the middle of the night on an empty road.

A 6 foot kangaroo standing in the middle of a pitch black road at 3am in the morning, missed it by a cat’a whisker.

I slammed the brakes once because I saw a deer in my peripheral vision. Upon closer inspection, it was a mounted deer head on a stick in the middle of the woods. Slammed the gas after I realized that.

I was on I-70 in Colorado going towards Utah, pulled over at a gas station at 8pm. Fueling up 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 these young women without notice of anything else going on around him.

I walk inside to go grab some food for the next few hours of driving. When I come out I see both the younger women’s car and the older man’s truck are gone. I decided to hang out at the gas station for the next hour to catch a little sleep before hitting the road again.

After driving for a few hours (I was speeding heavy) I pull over at yet another gas station, the young women are there getting gas and eating some food on a picnic table. Looked like they had been there for a while. I didn’t see any sign or the man in the truck but can’t say I was looking very hard for it. Well here is where it got creepy…

Can’t say I didn’t stare at them a bit, I mean they were good looking women. As I am watching them leave I see in the next parking lot over some headlights turn on and it’s the same man as before…. He leaves when the women leave once again. Okay that’s a bit weird but could just be a coincidence as there weren’t many places to pull over. I leave a few minutes later and catch up to them. Now this guy is tailing them with his high beams on.

I decided to slow down and stay a distance behind the truck. 10 minutes or so later the women pull over once again to most likely get this guy off their rears. With a sigh of relief the truck keeps going and I continue on my way. About 1 mile down the road the guy just pulls off to the side of the highway. So I pull off a mile or so down the road again. Sure enough the women drive by and the guy is still following them. At this point we are 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 could have just seen too many horror movies that started like this and over reacted but ya never know. Better safe than sorry.

A dead, butchered horse laying in the road. Someone had completely skinned and butchered a horse, took the choice pieces of meat, and just dumped it on the highway. I almost crashed into it.

I was driving home late one night and was driving 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 died. And I went to a nearby gas station not knowing what to do (was 18). When the tow truck pulled my car up on to it, there were a bunch of blood and guts on the bottom. I couldn’t get that image out of my head

Apparently a hammered driver with 5 DWI’s had hit a guy on a motorcycle prior and I had hit what was left of him.

For years after I had serious depression and thought about it every night before sleep.

A hitchhiker almost leaped out in front of my car on a dark forest road late at night. The woman literally popped out of nowhere. Had to drift into the oncoming lane. Luckily there was no one else and painted median there. Read a police report that she ended up getting hit minutes after I drove by. She was intoxicated and running from the police. Pretty creepy. I hope she’s alright. I can’t imagine what the driver that hit her was thinking.

While traveling east just outside Flagstaff, Arizona around midnight I was in the fast lane doing about 80mph. There was a bend in the road and you could see the headlights of the westbound lanes filter in-between the trees. It was funny because I thought the lights kinda looked like they were coming at me. Then they really were. I screamed obscenities and jerked the wheel just in time to let a speeding wrong way driver fly by me in the lane I was just in. After skidding to a stop on the shoulder I called the cops to report it.

“Could you describe the vehicle?”

“Yes, it was a dark blur with headlights.”

I don’t know if this is really scary, but it definitely freaked me out for a moment.

Driving home from grad lab for a couple hours of sleep, about 4 in the morning (longish, time-sensitive experiment), not dawn yet, still pitch black. Turn a corner, and suddenly, someone runs into the street right in front of my car and just stops. So I stop.

I wait.

They don’t move.

Cautiously, I try to drive around.

They scream, run up and slam their hands on the hood of my car. With them so close, I realize he is totally naked and filthy.

He stares at me for a moment, then proceed to run in wide circles, kinda listing to one side than the other, in front of my car.

After about two minutes of this, he lists hard to one side, far enough I felt safe quickly driving around him, very wide, on the other side that was now open.

Drugs, man. Never a good idea.

Dad was driving at night, and I was looking out the window and saw two bright red pinpricks in the corn field, following us. I told my dad about it and he said, in the most calm, casual tone for this situation:

“Those are cornfield demons. Stay in the car and you’ll be okay.”

Cue me freaking out when he got out of the car not too long after to check a tire before getting back in.

I’m still not sure if that was an actual thing he believed or if he was using a situation to his advantage to teach me to not do anything stupid like that at night. Either ways, it worked, and I STILL have no idea what those two pinpricks were.

I was following a grey Toyota Tundra in a massive blizzard through Montana in McDonald pass. He was going pretty quick most of the way but must have been unfamiliar with how steep the final few miles are. He got away from me as I slowed down to about 35. Not 5 minutes later I passed his tire marks in the fresh snow that went off the side of the mountain. Pulled over and looked down to see his truck upside down and on fire about 300 yards down.

Called 911. He didn’t die but was burnt up pretty bad. Sad and scary and don’t go 50 in the snow just because you have a truck or 4wd!

I was fetching someone from his work place. 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 if the road in front of me. Totally freaked me out. I thought I was finally experiencing something extraordinary. As I got closer I realized it was a 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.

I was a very young woman driving home after clubbing, about 2 am through Hollywood. I was pulling up to a stop sign on Cahuenga, about 3 blocks from Hollywood Blvd., when a bunch of guys begin 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 jack me. My instincts took over before I even realized what was happening.

I dropped my girlfriend off the night we saw The Mothman Prophecies. It wasn’t a super scary movie, but it had some scares. I take the interstate home. On the way, there is a curve where there aren’t any lights. 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. As it was about 3am, I guess I started 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 2 seconds tops, but it had my heart racing. Not paranormal, but definitely scary for me.

Driving down a two-lane divided highway, I came up to a couple 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, but I felt like I was mere centimeters from death. Thought my wife’s scream would be the last thing I ever heard and I never want to hear it again. The semis I passed all pulled to the shoulder to come check on us. Didn’t see the car anywhere. I think they just kept going.

Had to pull into a gas station after and collect myself.

Driving home one night from my fiancé’s house, normal night on the Florida highway.

It’s pretty dark, not too many lights, cruising at around 75 headed over a slight hill, just big enough that you can’t see the other side.

Get to the top and start making my way down the hill, and very suddenly in my headlight view I get a giant construction vehicle with all of its lights TURNED OFF, AND PARKED IN THE LEFT LANE OF THE HIGHWAY.

I really, seriously, pray to god that no one hit that parked construction vehicle (it was one of the ones that digs up dirt I think?) on the highway that day. I very, VERY 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 into the right lane to avoid the vehicle. Needless to say I was very nearly dead.

Immediately called Florida highway patrol and told them about it. I hope they got to it before someone got hurt, and I REALLY hope someone at that construction company lost their job. Because they could have killed multiple people.

I was driving with my girlfriend through Wisconsin on the way back home. It was really late, like 2 or 3 in the morning and I stopped at a gas station to fill up. My GPS ended up putting me on a small highway instead of the expressway right away after leaving there, but I didn’t want to complicate things more, so I just followed it.

My girlfriend was sleeping, so I had the radio off and drove in silence on this really dark, creepy highway. There were deer crossing signs, so I was driving extra cautious because a family friend had recently hit a deer in their truck, which did quite a number on it and also caused her to break her arm from the impact. I saw there was a pretty sharp curve coming up, so I slowed down to make it carefully and as I’m turning I see a figure exiting the darkness of woods.

It’s a large mountain lion, with blood stained all over the front of its face. Scared the crap out of me. I pulled up just after the turn and tried to wake my girlfriend up. I could see it’s large shadow make it way across the road in my rear view mirror, but by the time my girlfriend woke up it was gone. She had lived in Wisconsin most of her life and immediately dismissed my claims that it was a mountain lion because they are not really from that area. I told her I know what I saw, but she insisted that I was seeing things. I acted like she was probably right and continued the trip back, but I know what I saw.

I drove taxi during the night shift and among many crazy and terrifying things, I saw a toddler (2-3yrs). It was about 1 am and I was driving in a very wooded part of our town, just after dropping a customer off, and in the middle of the road was this baby just sitting in the dark. I stopped my cab and turned on my flashers. I preceded to walk up to the kid and he just started bawling. I tried to comfort him but me being in disbelief that a baby with no one around was just sitting there all I could say was “it’s cool it’s cool bro”.

I picked him up and he started crying frantically (I would too if a stranger came and grabbed me) I put him in the passenger seat and looked for the nearest drive way. It ended up being about 100 yards down the street. I pulled up into what I hoped was his house and there was maybe 6 or 7 teenagers drinking in the garage. I couldn’t see from the road because all the houses had long dirt driveways.

When I pulled up they acted as if I wasn’t even there until I said “hey, this your kid?” After a few “whats?” They came over to the cab and said, “Aiden? Where did you go?” Like the baby just goes for midnight strolls. Not a thank you or good bye or anything, they just took the baby in the house and continued drinking and laughing.

As I pulled out I felt as if I should call the cops or something but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m still scared to this day that I’ll be driving down a dark road and hit a baby.

Back in my twenties I was putting myself through uni by working night shifts at a factory. Money was great but between full time work and full time study I was constantly exhausted. Sleep got worse when I picked up a second job to make end’s meet, parents split up and dad went into depression so he wasn’t working.

Anyway, after months I kept falling asleep at the wheel on the way home from work just before dawn around 4am. One time as I was driving home all alone after work, I saw half a dozen crocodiles on the road! I swerved to avoid hitting them and almost crashed the car. I was terrified in the moment because they came out of nowhere and were huge and I’d never seen crocodiles in real life before, let alone on a free way. I pulled over the car and looked in my rear view mirror but nothing was there.

To this day I don’t know if I dreamed those crocodiles or if they were a hallucination from sleep deprivation. Scariest thing I’ve ever ‘seen’ and I’m so thankful no one was on the road at the time too.

Was vacationing in Newfoundland, and we ended up leaving dinner kind of late en route to our stop for the evening…was hoping to make it before dusk, but had to drive about 30 minutes in the twilight.

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

1978 or ’79. I was the lead singer/guitarist of a punk band called The Nads. Punk was new to Vermont and roundly hated in an era of overblown bands issuing albums of overly instumented 14 minute pieces. We were three poor kids with secondhand equipment and few gigs. We were also the owner of an ancient “Thames” van which had previously served a plumber. His name was still faintly visible on the sides despite many scrubbings.

Anyway, we travelled up and down Vermont and also made trips to New Hampshire and Maine playing where we could. We got a gig playing at a basement bar in Portland, Maine but the pay would cover not much more than the gas. We gassed up, packed two days worth of sandwiches and a change of underwear and off we went. Just over the border in Maine we blew a tire. It was still afternoon and there was a garage/gas station nearby so we took the tire off and walked it over to see if they could repair it. The spare was bald and probably wouldn’t have got us home.

The road was narrow and in pretty rough shape and we walked along in our all-black attired and our unfortunate haircuts. The reaction we got from the locals at the station was shock but we had cash and away we drove. About 20 miles further the same tire flattened again and we figured that we had been had. We were in an even more rural area and this was the time before cell phones so we were screwed.

Night closed in. We had food to eat and plenty of forest to pee in so we just waited for a good Samaritan or at least daybreak. We lounged around inside the van and played around a bit on a new song we were writing, then ate and tried to sleep.

Deep in the night we heard the screeching of metal being dragged along asphalt and we bolted upright and peered out the windshield. There a snowmobile was racing along the (June) road shooting off sparks behind it like a comet. One guy was driving and another guy was…well…”surfing” behind it on something which looked like a piece of farm machinery while he clung desperately to a rope tow line.

The “comet” lingered in our eyes as the two disappeared around a wooded corner. We didn’t say anything for a long while until Bill our drummer blurted out, “You guys need to write a song about that.” And so “Wrenchhead Surfing” was written.

Long stretch of road, not 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. And I don’t mean like an engine fire, i mean completely engulfed in flames. Not a single person or another car anywhere around it. I hadn’t even driven past a car in over an hour.

A lot of people that drive for a living or have done balls to the wall cross country drives can tell you about the running shadows. First time I saw em I was on the tail end of 12 straight hours of driving. I was driving through the middle of nowhere, in the desert, at night. Very little light from the sky, no man made lights even on the horizon. Just the pitiful cone from my truck’s headlamp, and being in the middle of the desert it pretty much only lights up the road ahead. Nothing above ground level to catch the light.

As I’m barreling along I start to see shadowy figures running alongside my truck out of the corners of my eyes, on two legs and four. All I can think about is the creepy stories you read online about creatures that live out in the desert, or the ghost stories where if you don’t acknowledge the spirit it can’t harm you. So I’ve got my eyes glued to the road, refusing to let them flicker off to the side. I rolled my windows up and cranked up the volume on my radio. Drove like that for probably an hour and a half until they slowly petered out roughly 15 minutes outside of a little one light town.

I’ve had people try to carjack me, people try to rob me after I pull over to render aid, people jump out at me on twisty mountain road, you name it. But nothing matching that level of fear the first time I saw them. Felt like my spine was rippling like a ribbon in a wind trying to jump clear out of my back and hide under the seat.

Sleep deprivation mixed with sensory deprivation does some strange things.

Not me but a friend. After dropping me off at my house around 2am, my friend calls me and tells me to lock my doors. He said he saw a man standing in the middle of the road and that as he passed him the man kept staring through him. Not at him really, but like their 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. Freaked me right out.

When I first started learning to drive I was working for my dad, and one day after work he asked if I wanted to drive home, I was like alright! So I got on the highway headed for home, and while driving, I looked in the rear view and a guy on a crotch rocket was coming up behind me, I thought nothing of it I was sure he would pass or slow down.

I look ahead again and a few moments later I hear this sound, like metal scraping against the ground. I look around and then look back into the rear view, and the bike was on its side, spinning down the highway, and behind it I could see the biker on his back, legs and arms flailing kind of like a baby on its back in a crib, then I watched as he disappeared under the vehicle behind him.

I was so freaked out driving after that I didn’t want to drive for weeks following the incident. Then eventually got over it. Still I can see the guy in my mind just sliding along the ground flailing about then being swallowed under another car.

An owl standing on the corpse of a large buck in the mountains at 3-5am. All you see as you approach are two glowing red orbs, then slowly a becomes huge dark form standing on the edge of the road with eyes of fire. Then you get close enough and this massive freaking owl just gives you the death stare as you go past. You realize it was just a large ass owl standing on the remains of fresh road kill. Freaked me out for the rest of the dark part of the drive.

Whilst driving from Morelia to Ciudad Hidalgo, in Mexico, back in the 80’s. We had two ways to get to Ciudad Hidalgo which was the national road or the old national road which was called Mil Cumbres. Mil cumbres basically means 1,000 curves. That stretch of road literally had 1,000 curves so a lot of people would get motion sickness when on that road.

One evening on our way back to my grandparents, who lived in Ciudad Hidalgo, my grandfather was driving and he loved taking Mil Cumbres because it had really nice views and he just really loved driving that road. But since we had the new national road, not a lot of people used that road anymore so it was kind of desolate with the exception of passing one or two little towns.

It was dusk, so we would soon be in complete darkness on a road with few other cars. It took 2 hours to get to the town on that road so maybe 45 mins into the drive it had already gotten really dark and as we were driving my grandfather started slowing down. I was sitting in the back seat because my grandmother was in the front with my grandfather so I kind of stood over the front chairs to see why he was slowing down.

That’s when I saw a huge tree log blocking the road. My grandfather came to a stop and immediately started going in reverse to turn around and get out of there immediately. After we turned, my grandfather stepped on the gas pedal and I was sort of thrown back into the back seat. I immediately turned around and as we were speeding away, I could see men, very dimly since it the light from the tail lights from the car were starting to get dimmer and dimmer, coming from out of the adjacent trees next to tree log on the road, with flashlights and guns.

We were about to get robbed and thanks to my grandfather’s quick thinking and taking action immediately, we avoided it. That was the last time I was ever on that road.

I was working at a restaurant as a cook. We did full menu till 11:00 PM, then apps and burgers till 1:00 AM. I tended to pull the solo night shift, because I would walk out the door at 1:05 AM and the kitchen was stocked, clean, and perfect.

It was a long night. Stupid front of house kept sending back food orders after 1:00 AM, I didn’t leave till 2:00 AM. 30 minute drive home, and I was exceptionally tired.

I lived in the boonies of Wisconsin, at the time. A good 5km outside of town, which was 500 people, 2 churches, and 9 bars. I hit the little 24/7 truck stop just at the edge of that town for some munchies and smokes, and made the final trek home.

Encountering deer was not uncommon out there, so I was going slow. But what appeared before me, to my tired eyes, was a monster.

It had a huge, round body. This crazy long neck, a pointy head, and only 2 legs. Right in the middle of the road. Scared the ever loving crap out of me in that state.

Thankfully, it stood there for a second. Brain re-engaged. It’s an ostrich. Ok, not a monster, heh, just… an…

What the heck is an ostrich doing wandering around in Central Wisconsin?!?

I looked at it, it looked at me. I blinked. Nope, still there. Pretty sure it’s real. Finally, it trundled off into the forest.

I grabbed my cellphone, and called the tiny little police station in town (non-emergency number).

“So… I’m really tired, so please laugh at me and tell me to go home and sleep and ignore the call… but I’m pretty sure I just saw an ostrich on Highway xx just outside town.”

She started laughing hysterically, then assured me that:

• No, I’m not hallucinating.
• There’s an ostrich and emu farm on the other side of town, guy raises them for the kitsch places in town for meat.
• Some hammered driver felt that “turns are for losers”, went up, over the berm, through the fence, and through most of the barn.
• There’s still 4 animals, including the one I just spotted, unaccounted for.
• Where are you exactly, and which way did it go so we can round it up?

I gave her the info, finished the last few miles home, and died in bed. Wild night, man.

One time I was going to my friend’s a few towns over. Most of the drive is a pretty straight road with a few stops, and has a speed limit of 45( so everyone does 55 usually).

It’s about 8 o’clock and dark out and I get stuck behind a slow car doing about 35mph. It’s frustrating but I’ll pass at the next passing zone. Next thing I know he goes even slower, down to 20 mph. I think maybe he feels me to close to him, so I back off his bumper and he speeds up to 45.

Soon he slows back down again..

Then speeds back up.

Then slows again. But this time he comes to a stop. In the middle of the road. No one else around. No stop sign. I decide fuck this and slowly start going around him. And I remember wanting to look over but as I was going by him I start accelerating.

Then he lays on his horn and starts accelerating to. So I put the peddle down even more trying to pass him. He is still laying on his horn. I am freaking out, so I just accelerating harder. Finally we are up to 80 mph me in the opposite lane before he slows off. I keep going wanting to put some distance on us.

Coming to the end of the road is a inter with traffic lights. Light turns red. Guy is still behind me. I grab a ice scraper from the backseat to get ready for him to get out and come to my truck.

Thankfully nothing happens. I turned at the intersection and he keeps going. Crisis adverted, but I was still shaking when I got to my friends house.

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 had taken was rather unfortunate, narrow and twisty through mountains covered with massive trees. Was getting way sleepy but absolutely nowhere to park.

Then just after another bend, it seemed like a wall of old, derelict, Gothic crosses appeared, almost giving me a heart attack. And at this point I was already creeped out enough not to look into the sleeper to check if I’m still alone in the cab.

No worries with dozing off for the next couple of hours until I reach civilization and clock off in the first bus-stop or some such.