Have you ever gone somewhere and then discovered it wasn't listed on a map, and no one else in the area had ever heard of or witnessed it? Or maybe you've driven through a small town that just didn't feel right, only to find out it's a cult community, or the site for a series of ritualized crimes.

There are some experiences that don't fit neatly into the umbrella of ghost stories, or close-calls with predators, but enter a whole different realm of twilight zone.

In a popular Reddit thread, people shared the eerie towns, disappearing spaces, and the unexplained stories of places that shouldn't exist, and it makes me never want to go on a road trip.

1. RealAbstractSquidII wandered through an imaginary hill.

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 fucking 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.

2. Reconsct still has no idea what was going on with that town.

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 sole 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 a*s 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 sole 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 her 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.

3. PumpkinSpiceWhatever still doesn't know what happened.

This took place when I was 13. No one in my family will acknowledge it happened, the only ones who would cave to my “but great grandpa...!!!” have unfortunately passed away. No one will give me the time of day about it.

My family has a cabin in Cook’s Forest, Clarion, PA. Cabin was built by my great granddad, and has expanded a bit over the years but has a nice little nook at the bottom of a long dirt road off the main road and down a hill. There are a few other properties around, but most are up and off on the dirt road, only one is down the hill and only halfway at that. It’s not modern by any means; no internet, cell service, the TV still has dials you have to twist to get to watch a DVD. It’s very rustic and I love it.

The property halfway down the hill is visible from any part at the front of our cabin, which is where the kitchen window, parking, porch, and fire pit are. For as long as anyone can remember, it’s been this abandoned lot that had what was once a cabin with a concrete basement. The cabin was built on a hill so half the basement stuck out from the hill, but the remaining part was crumbling. It also was at the fork where we would ride our ATVs to get to the firebreak, so even though it could’ve been creepy it was a very common and familiar sight.

Until one Memorial Day, which is when we opened the cabin after the winter and a large part of our family would go to the cabin for the long weekend to spend time together. Everyone would usually get there through the early evening, and then all come together for my great granddad’s dinosaur pancakes for breakfast (The highlight of my single digit to preteen years).

So I wake up, expecting to smell pancakes and hear chatter from the older members of my family down in the kitchen, but nothing. I assume I’ve gotten up too early, and go downstairs to use the bathroom and then go back to sleep. Looking back, the whole upstairs was just mattresses with an aisle between them, I should have noticed that most beds were empty.

I get downstairs and see all the adults outside, and I go out to say good morning and demand my T-Rex pancakes. I walk out and see all my family adults in a kind of semicircle facing an older man and a woman I didn’t recognize. I assume this is some adult situation so I go back inside to wake up my cousins, but not before looking at the clock on the microwave and seeing that it’s about 3pm.

Now, I LOVED the cabin. I’d doodle the cabin itself, 4 wheelers, and the area around it for months leading up to Memorial Day weekend. I was usually up at the a*s crack of dawn because I was so damn excited to just be there. Sleeping until 3pm was not in any way normal.

I wake my cousins up and by the time they all mosey downstairs the adults are all back inside. Everyone is pretty silent but then great grandpa fires up the stove and gets us kids excited for dino-cakes, so all seems normal.

I was there with my one of my aunts and my uncle, no parents, and my aunt is pretty close in age to me and was for sure the “cool aunt”. So when I saw her pale as a sheet I went to ask what’s wrong.

She took me outside and pointed at the aforementioned abandoned and crumbling property. In its place was a sprawling cabin-mansion, parking area full of SUVs and the coolest looking 4 wheelers my 13 year old self had ever seen. Aunt tells me that the owners had come to say hi (the couple I saw earlier) and invited us over to hang out with their nieces and nephews, as they were having a Memorial Day get together just like us.

Me, having zero thought besides AWESOME 4 WHEELERS, almost ran to the house but my aunt caught me and rather forcefully reminded me of my dino-cakes. I conceded and ran back inside, to an atmosphere so thick with tension that even my undeveloped brain (thanks dr mom) could detect it. The oldest of the adults were acting normal and playing around with us kids, but something was very off. I finally asked wtf was up, and my aunt bonked me in the head and asked if I had seen that massive cabin-mansion last night, last year, the year before? We’d come to the cabin every few weeks until December, did I see any construction? Well...no..but they invited us over and they have cool 4 wheelers aunt Beth come on!!

A resounding NO from multiple family members made my emotional girl self almost flee and cry, until my grampie (a 6’7” hulk of a man) got down to my level and explained that he felt there was something weird going on. He said the couple didn’t act right, I assumed that meant they were rude, and that we should just keep to ourselves this weekend. I agreed and we went about our day, all adults keeping us occupied with activities either inside or behind the cabin.

We get ready for bed when I see my great granddad (WWII vet) who had the only bedroom on the first floor loading 3 shotguns, handing one off to my grampie and the other to my uncle/cool aunt’s husband. To my shock and awe, my Gramie pulls out a (bedazzled) Glock from her purse. I go to bed with images of my little Gramie taking down a bunch of bad guys with her shiny pistol.

I wake up the next day to the smell of pancakes and the sound of adults chatting downstairs. I’m sad because today is when we have to pack and leave, but things seem back to normal so I’m very glad. I run downstairs, note that the clock says 7:30, but ignore the weirdness and sit in front of a plate of dino-cakes that I dig in to, while asking my aunt what time we have to leave.

“Leave? We don’t leave until tomorrow.” Wait, what day is it? “It’s Saturday, we just got here last night.” I notice just a bit of doubt in my aunt’s eyes that I know something is up, and I run outside. The abandoned lot is back to its decrepit state. I resolve to brush it off and enjoy my ATV riding, and forget about everything pretty quickly.

It wasn’t until I got back to school and was called to the main office where the asked why I wasn’t at school on Monday. I told them that today was Monday, wtf are they talking about. Nope, it’s Tuesday, and my absence was unexplained despite several calls (I skipped school frequently) to my parents (divorced) neither of which were at the cabin.

So either my family played the trick of all tricks on me, or I’m living in an alternate universe where I can sleep into the afternoon. Like I said, no one will even remotely entertain a conversation about this incident, so I’m left telling my fellow redditors about my family’s conspiracy against me lol.

4. literal9 still doesn't know where the barn went.

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.

5. seersucker was likely poisoned by agent orange.

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.

6. CaptLongbeard still doesn't know what was going on at that Taco Bell.

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 fuck 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.

Edit: yes, I believe the orders were all correct, which I guess just ups the creepy factor

Edit 2: we were young and actually pretty straight edge at the time, none of us were high or anything.

Edit 3: the best I can remember about the weird conversations was that they were stringing several prepositions in a row with no real sentence structure, forced laughter and nodding, stuff like that. Like they were mimicking how humans talk. Think of those "what English sounds like to a non-speaker" videos on YouTube, but EVERYBODY was doing it all around us.

Edit 4: u/tommyjohnpauljones has helped me determine that Pontiac, IL is possibly the town. Has a TB right off of 55.

Edit 5: I wasn't clear yesterday, but the weird conversations were happening between customer, not just the workers, so it wasn't the crew trying to mess with us. If it was just the workers, I would totally buy that theory. I used to work retail and you'd do anything to make the day go faster haha.

7. NamesJeffrey may have bought a bass from a creepy ghost store.

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.

8. oceanceaser has found a lot of cool abandoned buildings.

In the interior of BC I spent a lot of time exploring in the truck. Found loads of abandoned buildings and cabins but the coolest place that a friend showed me was an abandoned hippie commune deep in the forest. There were some crazy house designs, one looked like an ark, one was a ~40ft teepee clad with aluminum.

The place was clearly built by people who had very little building experience, but lots of creativity and motivation. There was a lot of weird stuff I found on the property, and I even found a bike that was stolen off me the year prior.

I have an Imgur album I'll find and link.

Edit: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/5Ko6q

9. Economy_Cactus found a strange cave.

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!

10. Slooth849 still doesn't know what "buffer night" is.

I posted this on Letsnotmeet a while back

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 shit 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.

11. nidenikolev

1. There is a town right near me in Pittsburgh, PA (Lincoln Way in Clairton, PA) where a whole street full of families disappeared overnight back in the 70s. Everything (bills, food, clothes, etc...) was left behind, no trace of them to this day. You can go on google maps and look it up, the houses are abandoned and almost closed off from the rest of the town.

2. There was another instance that I'll never forget, I read it here on a "Creepiest Google Map Places".

A man in Canada decided to drive until the highway stopped (sometime in the past couple years). I believe he started in Winnipeg and kept going N/NW until he ran out of road. About 1-2 hrs before he got to that point, he saw a lot of cars parked off the side of the road. Keep in mind that there wasn't a single gas station or store nearby and hasn't seen a house for quite some time.

There was a lot of about 30-35 cars old cars (want to say from the 50s or 60s), and in the distance he saw a cavern entrance that was faintly illuminated by light. He noticed the tail end of a group of people dressed in all black walking in.

No signs were around advertising it and he said he couldn't find anything about it on google maps.

He posted this a year ago, and that trip was even further back from that. I reached out and tried to get any markers or nearby areas I could do my own research by, but he said he could not remember specifics.

Still makes me wonder to this day what was going on there...

13. foxhunter may have been one of the only hotel guests.

My story is less creepy than it is odd and I've posted it before so you may have seen it:

When I was 13 years old, I bicycled the Natchez Trace Parkway from Mississippi up to Nashville TN with my dad over the course of a week. As much as I know I complained about the difficulty, it was a great trip with some amazing bonding. I still can't believe my mother let me go. This would have been late 90s.

The most interesting story on the journey comes from the day from Belmont, MS to Waynesboro TN. The previous day we had ridden further than we expected (92 miles!) because we couldn't find a motel room (and weren't biking and camping on this trip - probably my mom's plea). Needless to say, we were a little tired from the previous day.

It's a good 75 miles to Waynesboro - but we had a motel tour guide of the trip that said a small motor lodge would be available. The terrain was rolling hills, and they got more difficult after we crossed the Tennessee river in northwest Alabama, so we were ready to be done.

We got off the Parkway, and went about 4 miles west. This little place wasn't actually in the town - it was just an old motor lodge along U.S. 64. It looked straight out of the 50s, and had 1 pickup and one semi-bobtail parked out front. It looked closed, and we were a little worried. There wasn't anything else listed in our guide, we were dead tired - and no one lives in this part of Tennessee.

But we walked in and sure enough, a couple was at the window and ready to get us a room - in fact, they even had a small diner that they were trying to get open, so we were welcome to join them for dinner. Awesome - you better believe we want to have dinner with you!

We took a room - and we were in fact the only ones there besides the trucker. We opened the door and...what a sh*thole. For starters, the walls were that old faux wood board and had seen better days. The carpet was orange shag from probably the 50s or 60s. Maybe original to the building. The beds were hard. Oh, and it was about 95 in the room from the day's heat with no A/C turned on - which is perfect for after a long, hot bicycle ride. TVs had rabbit ears and got about 1.5 channels. This was 1999 mind you. There was a huge old window unit that we turned on ASAP. Took "cold" showers to get feeling normal, while the other hung out outside (with the door open) and went to dinner to let the room cool off.

No traffic on this road. Hardly a sign for the town a few more miles up the road.

Back in the office/diner, the lights outside were now on and it was obvious we were the only ones in for dinner. Food? Not that good, but you'll eat anything after a workout of 75 miles. But the folks who ran the place were just wonderful. A husband and wife, they had bought the motel days prior and were trying to get it running again. Would have been closed if we were there a few days before!

They were keeping the old place open while the started to redo rooms, and get the diner running. They talked about the place and how they wanted to start something like this, and how they hoped it would go. They were really interested in us as well - and probably listening for the tourist aspect of what we were doing on the bike trip.

The gentleman said that he thought they could get some folks to the diner by introducing a kareoke night. He had just bought a machine and had it hooked up to a tv - but it wasn't working and he couldn't figure it out. I offered to give it a shot - and I don't know exactly what I did, but in a couple tries it was fixed again and he sang a song.

And then the power went out.

The couple brought out some candles - and said that this had already happened to them twice now - but it wasn't them and they didn't know why it kept happening. We all talked in the dark for a bit - and then we said our good nights.

Went back to our room - and it was still hot. Ugh. My father and I talked about the place and he said that there was no way that their idea was going to work, but it was too bad, because they were nice people. Went pretty much straight to the uncomfortable beds. Power came on at some point before midnight.

Next morning, we had a pretty good breakfast at the diner, and the couple was so apologetic. Nah, it happens. We were happy they were here. We wished each other luck and left out after that.

A few days later after we got to Nashville, and took a bus back to get our minivan to go home, we stopped by again - just to say hi.

Place was closed up and locked up. No one there.

I've tried to look up the place again, but it's been long since demolished. I know the place failed under those folks, but they tried something - and they were gracious hosts.

TL;DR Closed before us. Closed after us. Open for us - a story of odd hospitality.

14. mythical_accountant thought the college kids shape-shifted.

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.

15. InfamousCrown's mom doesn't know what was going on in that gas station.

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.

16. urgehal666 noped out of there.

There's this old abandoned hotel a couple hours away from me. It's not like a modern hotel, but like an old Victorian house that was turned into a B&B. It's totally boarded up, big fence around it with barbed wire. Apparently it's pretty damn haunted.

In high school me and some friends went to go check it out. It's in the middle of this a circular road, not a roundabout but you can go around several times before feeding back onto the main road. It takes about ninety seconds to go around this circle.

Anyway, the first time we drive through all the shades on the windows are drawn. We drive around again, only half of the shades are drawn. The next time we drive by all the shades are open. We drove around one last time and all the shades were drawn again. We freaked out and drove the hell out of there.

17. voluptuousTTs is pretty sure they drove through a cult.

I'm a little late to the party now, but near where I live there is a little town called Ridgeview Park.

My friend was talking to a new girl, and we were scoping out where she lived so he wouldn't get lost on his upcoming date when we took a wrong turn.

After a slight decline, the road sharply rose until we crossed some train tracks and were met with a fence about 20 feet tall made from wood pillars about the size around of telephone poles. There was a gate that was open, so we drove in.

Once inside, there is a single loop that winds through the whole complex. Only wide enough for one car. One way in, one way out. In the middle sits a large dome/church. The houses that surround it are all square two-story homes painted brightly in strange colors. There is a drained community pool off to one side with grass growing in the basin. Lined up along the very back of the loop are 50-70 single car garage doors, all right next to each other. No house appears to have their own.

It was strangely quiet and as we drove passed the homes, residents would step outside and watch us. The loop isn't too large, and we eventually made our way around and exited through the gate and some people walked closer watching us leave.

Haven't seen anything else like it. Their website is password protected, and their Facebook page is private. The part you can see says it is a "summer community" that started out as a Methodist camp and still has religious services, and that they only sell homes to members of the family.

Such a creepy vibe to the whole place, and we try to drive through at least once a year (when the gate is open).

18. sichbumba ate at a ghost pizza place.

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.

19. Illbeanicefella has never returned to Skidmore.

A couple years ago a buddy and I got turned around on a side road in rural north Missouri. I had no service for GPS and it was pouring rain so I headed south toward my destination hoping to run into a main highway. We ended up coming into the town of Skidmore MO. It’s a tiny town in the middle of nothing but there’s something dark about that place. Infamously in the 80s a man known as the town bully was killed in broad daylight in the middle of town there.

Not one person spoke up about who killed him and it’s never been solved despite many witnesses. There’s also been disappearances, and a brutal crime a few years ago involving a baby being cut out of a woman’s womb. Keep in mind this is a town of only 270 people. As we drove down the main drag several people gave us a blank but intimidating stare, completely unnerving. Once we got out of the town my buddy mentioned he’d had a sense of impending doom or danger as we drove through, weirdly enough I’d been feeling the same way. I’d never had a such a persistent gut feeling of danger like that before. We agreed to never ever fucking go through Skidmore again. There’s something seriously evil about that town, it shouldn’t exist.

20. __celli noped out of that camping spot.

I posted this a few months ago, but here it is again. Still creeps me out. 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.

People are sharing stories of the creepy towns and haunting places they've visited.