Never go into the woods alone unless you have a death wish or desire to be haunted by the ghost of wildlife. At least, that's what I gathered from Chris McCandless ala Into The Wild, and pretty much any thriller than involves a character who explores the wilderness solo.

Even the most experienced hikers and wild life workers can be blindsided by the sheer creepiness of a rural presence, whether it takes the shape of a predator animal or a fresh dead body.

In a popular Reddit thread, people shared some of their weirdest stories from the depths of nature, and it has convinced me to stay safe within the chaos of the city.

1. HoneyBadgerPanda thought they were being followed and it appears they were right.

TL;DR: Was out in the mountains for four days by myself. Felt like I was being followed over 30+ miles. First night I slept not in my tent; it was destroyed and cut to pieces.

On a two week solo backpacking trip I had four days in seclusion between Ranger Station check ins. On the first day of the seclusion; I felt like I was being stalked. As I lay in my tent that night I could hear what sounded to me like footsteps around my camp but never coming too close. In the morning I checked all around and found no evidence of footprints or having any wild life around me.

I broke down camp and took off trying to put it behind me. The second night was the same thing. I grew so paranoid that when I would hike during the day I would go over rocks, walk through streams; anything to try and break the trail so I couldn't be tracked. I'd go around a blind turn and than sit there for an hour waiting to see if something would come behind. At night I couldn't sleep for more than 10/15 minutes before waking up.

Finally I got to the Ranger Station check in and told them what I had been experiencing. I went and set up camp as close to the station as I could. Later the Rangers; they offered for me to sleep on their couch for comfort and so I could actually sleep. I accepted and stayed the night indoors.

I walked out to my camp in the morning and it had been destroyed. My tent was cut on the side, sleeping bag ripped and backpack turned inside out. The Rangers came and reported it; took pictures and everything. I ended up getting one of the Rangers to give me a ride back to base camp and going home the next day.

2. LysimachiaTerrestris will never get used to certain forest vibes.

I spend a lot of time out in the Canadian north. One thing that happens that I will never get used to is when the forest stops.

Late at night you often hear things running around and making lots of noise, these are small animals trying to act big and scary at a defensive tactic. Sometimes the noise just stops and everything is silent, no wind, animals, birds, or trees moving. At this time you know a top predator is near and is on the hunt. That's one feeling I will never get used to.

3. itsbernstein made a beaver friend.

While out fishing i became good friends with a fat beaver. He chilled next to me while i fished for about 2 hours. Just watching me cast and catch fish. We watched an osprey dive into the lake and get a bass which was an amazing moment. When the sun started setting he sauntered back into the lake and we went our separate ways. The best fishing experience i had so far.

4. oscurotek found a deserted boat.

I told this on another account once.

While on deployment my ship found a ship adrift off the coast of Australia. As an engineer trained for vbss I was tasked with assessing the ships mechanical status on boarding.

It was deserted. Fish in the hold and stuff set out like people were just there. There was food on the galley area that was still warm, etc.

We never found the crew so we towed the boat in for the authorities.

Absolutely scared the fuck out of people and those who didn't board the ship didn't believe us when we were telling them about the state of it.

5. WendigoPrincess doesn't know what the German men were doing.

My fiance and I went hiking up a mountain in the Pacific Northwest last summer. It's perpetually muddy due to a large number of waterfalls along the sides of the trail, so there's no way you can avoid getting at least a little dirty.

Around an hour and a half up the trail, we passed two men wearing black suits, black hats, black glasses, holding black leather briefcases and wearing black dress shoes. Completely clean dress shoes. And immaculately clean, pressed pants. Not a spot of dirt or a wrinkle on either of their clothes.

As we passed each other, one of them whispered something in German. I looked back at them and they were both standing still and looking back at us, staring.

One of the creepiest things that has ever happened to me, and I've had my fair share of strange experiences!

6. Sipid1377's coworker saw a fully dressed skeleton.

Sorry for a "not me but someone else's story" story, but here it is anyway: I used to work for the US Forest Service and sometimes worked with an older gentleman that had lots of interesting stories from his many years of life. But by far the most chilling tale was from when he was working in a very secluded area of wilderness and was walking through the forest when a thunderstorm hit.

He had seen a opening in the hill a little while back and headed to it to take shelter. Once inside he shined his flashlight to check he wasn't going to wake up a bear or something and found the skeleton of a man, sitting in a lawn chair, with a rifle rigged up so he had been able to shoot himself. The skeleton was still wearing jeans and a flannel shirt.

I've met a lot of bull shitters in my time and this guy wasn't one, he'd honestly just led an interesting life.

7. feelthatk188 is haunted by the sounds of submarines.

Hearing the faint sonar pings from the Russian subs in the middle of the night out in the Baltic Sea.

8. FookYu315 doesn't know how the older man hiked without gear.

I was in a remote area surveying populations of various organisms in mountain streams. One morning an older man crossed the stream I was standing in. We both froze for a second and he continued on his way.

He didn't have any gear with him and it's a 15-20 mile hike from the nearest (dirt) road. My point is he wasn't just casually wandering through.

Edit: holy shit this blew up! I just noticed because have spotty internet access at the moment.

9. MrGordley has a mutual "don't ask, don't tell" policy with the cartel.

So I worked at a ranch in southern Arizona, right on the border. I didn't really consider it to be secluded because I had horses and cows. In hindsight, I guess it was really lonely because sometimes they'd talk back to me.

Anyways, doing fence borders with a guy from another camp and we had to go down into this dry river bed. As we round the bend we see a bunch of beat up trucks sitting there armed to the teeth. Turns out we ran into some kind of big deal for a cartel. The other guy told me to keep steady and we just walked straight through them on our horses. Everyone staring at us, looking like they were ready to shoot us up if we made one false move.

I asked about it when we got to the other side without turning into swiss cheese and the more experienced rancher told me: "The Cartel only cares about Border Patrol and Cops. They know this is a ranch, and they know we roam around here, and they know we don't say much." Reason being, if they ever assumed the ranchers were the snitches, they could easily find our little ranch houses. Only had 1 person to so many acres. Could have been offed and left there for many days before someone noticed. With all that in mind, I had a very passive relationship with those kind from then on.

10. Abusedtoaster123 had a staring contest with a wolf.

I was running on a logging road in central Wisconsin and stopped because I felt like I was being watched. It was just an instinctive feeling. That's when I noticed a large wolf step out of the forest about 50 yards ahead of me. It was just staring and I stared back. After about 30 seconds of us checking each other out it just slipped back into the woods and was gone. I kept running in the same direction but never really shook the feeling of being watched. I guess it's not that scary because wolves rarely attack people, but you betcha it was creepy enough being alone out there.

11. Ayy_2_Brute almost lived Castaway.

I was on a the bow of a sailboat crossing the atlantic in pretty heavy winds, going about 15 knots. Crew had to be stationed alone on the bow in two hour shifts at all times, keeping an eye out for anything in the water. About 10 meters away from me I see a weird glint in the water. Then I realize it's a partially submerged shipping container. Before I had time to even open my mouth, we passed it by, missing it by a few feet.

And that's the story of how I nearly got shipwrecked in a storm in the middle of the atlantic ocean.

12. wawaskittletits420 has seen a mystery creature.

So out where I live it's just outside of a town nestled at the bottom of mountains (FYI I live in Australia) and it's not too secluded since I live with my family and you'll generally come across someone's property every 500 metres but there are some stretches where you won't see a house for a km. One night my mum and I are coming home pretty late at night and we we're just talking and listening to the radio.

We come around a corner and we both saw this fucking creature that I still don't know what it is till this day. But it had the body the size of a medium dog, mangy looking black fur, an almost abnormally large head, big green eyes (which was the first thing I noticed) but most weirdly an almost impossibly long and thin neck, like it shouldn't be able to support the large head.

My mother and I are fucking cussing like sailors at this point and make a u-turn around to get a better look at it, and within 10 seconds there was no trace of it. Normally I'd brush this off as probably a wild dog but the body just didn't look like a dig and it was too big for a cat, even a wild one. The real scary part is that my family and I have seen that maybe two to three times now almost exclusively late at night. However my SO's father has said that he's also seen it twice, once at night and once at daytime and I get the feeling we're not the only people in town to have seen it.

Edit: I don't live in Tasmania, so it's pretty much impossible or damn near impossible to be a Tasmanian devil or thylacine.

13. BornCavalry saw an extinct animal.

When I was a scout in Iraq, I was setting up a concealed observation post when we saw the largest cat through our thermals. Like Lion/Cheetah/Leopard (the thermals were fuzzy, but we could identify size based on distance with the laser range finder)

The thing is all three of those animals used to live in Iraq - but they have been LONG since extinct in the area.

14. TaiChiDeathmatch doesn't know where the body went.

Driving through the middle of Montana one night, going about 100mph, passed something on the side of the interstate that looks like a mangled body. Turned around at the next pass, came back. Definitely a body. Put my lights on it and tried to call 911 on my cell. No reception. Got in the car to see if i could pick up cell reception (lights were still on)...nothing there but the blood splatters. Drove away QUICK

15. TroutsBane noped the hell out of there.

Several years ago I was fly fishing in late February and stumbled on two guys disposing of a human body. The ground was still frozen so they opted to hide the body in a drainage pipe at the base of a dam. Needless to say I did a complete 180 turn while muttered something to myself like, " Jesus is it cold! Impossible to fish in these conditions."

And made a somewhat chaotic bee line back to my car. When I looked back I could see them peeking out from behind a tree, so I followed the immortal words of Saint Clark W. Griswold and, " Rolled em up." A few weeks later I saw those same familiar faces, but this time under a news headline saying that they had been charged with murder.

16. BillybobThistleton still thinks about the lone fisherman at night.

On a small sailing boat in the Pacific, sailing south from Panama to Ecuador in the middle of the night. Two people on deck – the helmsman and me, theoretically on lookout but really just there to keep the helmsman awake. It’s well after midnight and we’re away from major shipping lanes. We’re somewhere west of Colombia and we haven’t seen land or another vessel in at least a day (at least, not while I’ve been awake – four hours on, four hours off).

And then I see a light off the port bow. It’s far off and distant and under the sail, and therefore hard to keep track of, but it’s there. It isn’t moving. And it seems to flicker and dim but gradually I become aware it’s getting a little brighter, bit by bit. And then I realise it’s a boat, and it’s coming right for us, and by this time I can hear the engine and I yell to the helmsman: “Hard a-port.”

(Yes, I used old-timey sailing talk in a crisis. I have no good explanation for this)

So we steer to the left, and the oncoming boat passes on the starboard bow. It’s less than 10 metres away, a big RIB with a massive outboard engine at the back travelling at full throttle. There’s enough light from the moon and our running lights to see that there’s only one person aboard, slumped upright over the steering column, and a load of fishing equipment in the back. Then it’s gone into the night, still travelling straight at maximum speed.

This was over ten years ago. To this day I have no idea if that midnight fisherman was alive or dead, if he’d fallen asleep at the wheel or suffered a sudden heart attack or what. I don’t know if he powered on until the outboard ran out of fuel and was never seen again, or woke up five minutes later and steered back home. I don’t know what he was doing that far from the other fishing boats (we later saw other lights on the horizon and guessed that they were the fishing fleet), or whether he aimed for us deliberately or if it was sheer coincidence that brought him within spitting distance of our tiny boat in the empty sea. I still wonder sometimes.

Edit to add: We called it in to the local authorities with our position and his rough heading, but we only had vague information and we were a long way from shore. I doubt they could have found him, and we never heard back from them.

17. Toolset_overreacting was more afraid of the mystery cars than the elements.

Little late to the thread, but wanna share:

I went on a two and a half week long hike in the middle of nowhere Nevada. Like a couple of hours from even the smallest of towns. One night, I decided to set up camp on a ridge line overlooking a valley with a dirt road bisecting it.

Most nights I would've had a small fire, but it was breezy and was cutting across the ridge pretty hard. I think the weather saved my life.

At about 10pm, a truck drove down the road and there was a rhythmic pattern of "door opens, dome light comes on, driver grabs something from the passenger floorboard, drops it out of the truck, closes the door, drives slowly for 20 seconds, and repeats." He did that for what looked like a mile. I thought it was weird, but whatever. 15 minutes later, a different vehicle, a suburban, drive up along the road. The driver was holding a flashlight out the window and stopped in the same spots the truck did. Open door. Pick up something. Close door. Drive. Open door. Pick up something. Drive.

I don't know what the fuck it was, but I'm convinced that I would've ended up with a couple more bullets in me than I'd like, if I had that camp fire.

18. rufuckingkidding found a taxidermy hotel.

(Serious) I was living in a dirt floor cabin for about 6 months. I would pack a lunch and hike out half a day in random directions. One day I found an abandoned hotel with an attic full of bats. The old kitchen was full of taxidermy. Not abandoned old taxidermy...current taxidermy, in various states of finish.

There was a closet with stacks of dead birds, tools, woodworking tools and glass for the display cases, etc. I noped out of there in a hurry. I took my brother there later because he didn't believe me...so I have a witness.

19. Northsidebill1 scratched a wolf's head without realizing it.

More mysterious than creepy. We were camping in Montana near Yellowstone park in a small campground. It was the off season and there were maybe 5 other people there, including a couple 3-4 spots down who had a large dog with them in their RV. I walked by and the dog was friendly so I petted it and talked to it and went on my way.

Later that night I am sitting watching the sun set and reading on my Kindle when a cold nose bumps up under my arm, like dog does when it wants attention. I figured it was the dog and started scratching its head. Before i could look around, my friend came around the corner and froze with a look of fright on his face. I was scratching the head of a pretty big grey wolf. I had no idea what to do, I didn't want to keep touching it but I didn't want to stop and piss it off either. I scratched for maybe 5-10 more seconds and it just looked at me like "Thanks, bro" and walked off into the woods. We went to a hotel that night...

20. KOmouse chilled with deer.

I was 13 and on a week long camping trip. There were two adults and five other kids my age. One night we had spent all day kayaking and got caught in a deluge that threw off our whole schedule for the day. We couldn't quite make it to the location where we were supposed set up camp for the night before sunset so we just settled a few meters off of the river. We were so exhausted that the adults didn't even want to build a fire. Since we didn't have much light and it was hot they told us that we didn't have to build our shelters we could just lay out in our sleeping bags.

Everyone put their sleeping bags near a clearing that was created by a fell tree. But I saw the hole created by the roots and thought that there were possible creepy crawlies living in it. So I set my sleeping bag a little further back about four meters away from the clearing. I woke up a few hours later to these rapid clicking sounds and sniffing. (Thanks to the Internet I later identified it as deer noises.) There were a bunch of them. The clicking grew closer and was surrounded me on all sides. I had my flashlight but I didn't want to shine it because I was afraid to scare the deer/creatures because I thought they would trample me.

The most vocal deer then stepped on my sleeping bag and eventually sat down on it. I could hear the other deer get comfortable too. After a while I allow myself to peak out (not wearing my glasses) and I see maybe 15 deer/creatures all just watching the other campers. After several hours I fell asleep and woke back up as they were leaving at sunrise.

It was wholesome/creepy.

Tl;dr: A herd of deer watched a group of campers sleep all night. One laid down on my sleeping bag with me inside.

Edit: yes, ticks exist and thanks for doubling my karma!

20 people share their scariest stories from being alone in nature.