Nighttime is really its own special world, even in the 21st century where we are, generally, aware that there aren’t monsters hidden around every corner in the shadows. But that doesn’t mean that the darkness is somehow just as enjoyable as daytime if you have to spend a lot of time in it.

Someone asked “When driving at night, what is the scariest/most unexplainable thing you’ve ever seen?” and netizens shared their personal horror stories. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own thoughts and experiences to the comments below.

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#1

When I was about 19 I was driving on a two lane road after work around 11pm. No other cars on the road and suddenly this guy in a red shirt on a bicycle swerved from the side of the road right in front of my car. I hit him. Felt the impact. I was yelling “OMG ” over and over and got out of the car to see how badly he was hurt. Only I didn’t see him. I couldn’t find the guy. No bike. No red- shirted guy, no dent or blood on my car. I searched the ditch with a flashlight. A couple people passed by while I was looking in the field for a body when a sheriff’s car pulled up. I told him what happened. He said I didn’t hit anyone. Told me that about 15 years earlier a young man in a red shirt was hit by a car while riding his bike right there. He died instantly. Deputy told me that every couple years someone driving thru there believes they’ve hit a red-shirted bike rider. I’d hit a ghost.

Edit: first, thanks for the award kind Stranger! Yes, this is a true story; it happened about 40 years ago and it still creeps me out. To this day I don’t like driving at night.

© Photo: tealgrayone

#2

When I was 16 I had a junky convertible 1989 Capri. I loved that car. One night I was driving the backroads home out in the middle of nowhere Missouri. Top down, enjoying the night air. I dove under some low hanging trees and heard a weird SLAP noise from the backseat. Turned around to see a huge black snake frantically slithering towards the safety of under my seat. I nearly wrecked. I hate snakes and even though this rat snake was 100% harmless I was panicked. Pulled over screaming and called my dad to come de-snake my car.
I never road with the top down in the country again.

© Photo: CatiCom

#3

I was 19 driving home from my then bf house and stopped at a red light on the very edge of town (like city lights behind me but corn fields and shelter belts ahead of me) because it’s like 2 in the morning I’m the only one sitting at the red light. I saw something moving in my peripherals and because of my location I thought it was gonna be a deer. I turned my head and locked eyes with a man maybe in his 50s creeping towards my car. When he saw that I saw him he froze and it was then then that I noticed he had a tire iron. I ran the red light and sped out of there.

© Photo: QuiteLady1993

#4

While driving across Luisiana on I10, I saw a flying car.

There’s a bridge that’s about 40 miles long on that road. There was no other car in sight. And far ahead of me on that bridge there was this car about 8 feet above the road. It was kind of bobbing as it flew.

It was a very dark night. All I could see was it’s tail lights. I tried to convince myself it was just a trick of perspective. It just looked like it was higher than the road.

It was freaky, and scary. I was slowly gaining on it, so I slowed down.

I eventually speeded up, telling myself I was stupid being scared of it. Couldn’t really be a flying car. Not a ghost or something.

As I slowly creeped up it was definitely about 8 feet above the road.

As I got closer I finally saw. It was bring hauled on a flat bed truck like a wrecker. The truck had no tail lights, so I guess the truck driver turned on the car’s tail lights .

It gets spooky at night down in those swamps.

Later edit after some replies.
I was wrong, it’s not 40 miles long.
It’s 29.2 miles long.

Atchafalaya Basin Bridge I10 Louisiana USA.

© Photo: Reasonable_Night42

#5

Years ago, my then boyfriend was taking me home around 11p.m. We’re on a tiny back road on the middle of nowhere, known for little to no cell service.

Oil light comes on, car starts sputtering. We pull off. Get out, start walking around to get cell signal, and nada.

Out of nowhere we see headlights and what appears to be a cop car from a few towns over pull up. Very nice guy (unusual for the cops around here), asks us what’s wrong and immediately says not to worry. He pulled out 2 quarts of the oil we needed from his trunk, and instructed us to get out of the cold and in to the car

Boyfriend and I are talking amongst ourselves in the car with the hood still up, when we realize we haven’t seen him come back to his car that was parked across from us.

And then we realize there is no car.

Or a cop.

But there was a single leather glove laying across the valve cover, and enough oil to register on the dip stick.

Thanks Ghost Cop.

© Photo: User

#6

Scariest thing was this dude who was hitchhiking except something was strange about him. He wore his hoodie down when it wasn’t raining, it was actually a hot humid night in Alabama, and also his other arm was behind his back. When I passed him by I looked on my rear view mirror and saw behind his back was a shotgun.

© Photo: bonafide_stonah

#7

It wasn’t exactly something I saw, but some point halfway through my drive home, at about 8:30 ish at night, a guy started following me. It couldn’t have been for very long, because I didn’t notice he was there until I pulled into my driveway and he parked there at the entrance, got out, hiking his horn and screaming some sort of nonsense. Bunch of s**t like “we f*****g know where you live! [darn] you!” over and over again and not saying anything about why he had followed me. F****n terrified me. Worst thing? Happened two days ago. Still have no idea why or who it was. Been staying at my mom’s bc if some random angry man knows where I live then for the time being I don’t live there.

© Photo: Aubsedobs

#8

Getting a feeling that I needed to turn my brights on in a dark spot in the middle of town … And there ended up being 4 deer just chilling in the road that I wouldn’t have seen until I was much closer.

© Photo: ellanida

#9

Maybe not scary but I was driving home in the middle of the night years back and a meteorite came into sight and lit the entire sky up like it was daytime for a few seconds. Pretty crazy to see and it had landed a few hours away from where I was.

© Photo: User

#10

>When driving at night, what is the scariest thing you’ve ever seen?

Huge truck with no lights and all reflectors covered with mud, stalled in a shadowed patch of darkness totally blocking the right lane of a lonely country highway with no shoulders.

A wall of invisible steel waiting to k*ll some less observant motorist.

© Photo: MegaSillyBean

#11

I haven’t seen any comments mention it yet but I fully expect someone will.

If you see a deer on the road that… _isn’t quite right_… in some way or another, it’s probably chronic wasting disease. It’s a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (prion disease) that often presents in ways like the deer is rotting while still alive. This can mean a lot of things, like deer with weird postures, pieces falling off of them, etc. so in the dark at night it can look really freaky. Like a monster that is trying to look like a deer but didn’t quite get it down.

I’ve heard several “I saw a monster on the side of this mountain road one night” stories that were almost certainly a deer with progressed chronic wasting disease. It’s very sad but also quite fascinating, if it wouldn’t gross you out to read about.

© Photo: incompetentegg

#12

My young wife and I were moving between cities. We’d spent all day loading a large 16-ft. trailer with all our belonging, and began the drive across the state just before dark. I’d borrowed a large pickup truck to pull the heavy trailer to our destination, so the combination of this truck and trailer (fully loaded) was VERY heavy, and pretty slow and cumbersome to start and stop.

We were traveling along a very desolate stretch of highway at around midnight, driving roughly 60-65 mph, when I see what looks like a couple of deer walking out into the road ahead of us…maybe 200 [you don’t say] ahead? My wife is asleep on the seat next to me. I begin to slow down a bit and lay on the horn to scare the animals off the road before we reach them. Where we live this is a pretty common occurrence, so I’m not slamming on the brakes cause I expect these deer will move well before we get there. They usually do.

Suddenly I realize, as these “deer” come clearly into the light of our headlights, that these aren’t deer! It’s two men, and they’re trying to stop us! It’s only a two lane highway, and one man is standing in the middle of our lane, and the other is standing in the middle of the opposite lane. By now there’s absolutely NO WAY I’m going to be able to stop this rig, and they aren’t leaving me anywhere to go. But they don’t realize I CAN’T stop!

I stomp on the brake pedal, and continue to blare the horn over and over again as fast as possible, hopefully getting them to move. I’m fighting to keep the truck and trailer from jackknifing, brakes locked up and tires screaming, but these guys are NOT moving, and I’m still going 35-40 mph when I reach them.

The only thing I can do at this point is try to thread the needle between them, so I center the truck in the middle of the roadway and hope neither of them tries to close that small window. At the very last second, the guy who’s standing in the middle of our lane jumps out of the way. He was so close I was seriously worried our big rear view mirror might hit him in the head! I missed hitting him by mere inches.

This all happened in a span of about 5-8 seconds. There was no car anywhere on the road, we were way out in the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty obvious, based on their behavior, that these two guys were up to something potentially nefarious. I didn’t stop. I’d come WAY too damned close to k*lling these guys. My heart was literally in my throat, and it was pounding so hard I was having trouble breathing.

I didn’t even realize until afterward that when I’d slammed on the brakes my wife had slid off the seat and onto the floor (this was before seat belts were mandatory). She groggily gets up off the floor and asks me, “What the h**l happened??” She’d missed the entire ordeal.

/ Certainly not “unexplainable”, but it scared the S**T out of me! I’ve never come so close to k*lling someone in my life, and I truly hope I never do again!

© Photo: Lutefiskaficionado

#13

Four years ago I’m driving across the Colorado / New Mexico border at around 4am and I’m looking for a place to stop for fuel. I happened along the smallest and saddest little farm town with only one tiny gas station. I hadn’t seen another car for hours, it’s freezing cold, and it felt like this town was abandoned it was that quiet… honestly it was kind of cool except for the cold.

I’m pumping away feeling like I’m completely alone, until I notice another car in the shadows near the back of the building. Flashy black low rider with completely tinted windows and 4 “right out of a Mexican Gangster movie” looking guys leaning against it. I remember laughing because 1, they startled the h**l out me and 2, they were wearing the black shorts, wife beater tank tops and the knee high socks. Remember it was FREEZING cold, it was the middle of nowhere, and they looked so casual.

Without a word, all 4 got off the car and walked straight towards me until I could see the full sleeves and face tattoos under the pump lights. Dropped the gas pump, fired up the motor and did the greatest 0-100 that old girl had ever seen. Not 20 seconds after burning out onto the highway, I see headlights swerve out and follow me. Little did they know, my beat up looking dodge truck had the hemi motor and a couple of upgrades, they never had a chance and after a few miles their headlights disappeared in my rear view mirror.

I didn’t think much of it, and even laughed at how bad I outran them till a cop buddy told me about the Mexican Cartels running d***s through there to avoid the Interstate. I wasn’t laughing anymore.

© Photo: DieselDown

#14

My brother and I were driving down a super remote road late at night many years ago. Wildlife was common so we drove slower than was posted. An accident could be fatal on this road. Anyway, it was a particularly dark night so we had the high beams on and were really concentrating on the journey.

We saw it at the same time. It was impossible to miss. My brother hit the brakes and we skidded to a stop in front of the biggest f*****g cow on earth. We could have driven under it with room to spare. It was massive. And it stared at us without seeming to see us. The vibe was so creepy. Other cows were around but they were regular sized. This guy was the king of all bovine.

It doesn’t seem all that weird when telling the story but something was just off with this creature. It didnt seem quite…natural.

© Photo: taikalainen

#15

Late to the party but…a purple balloon. I was just driving home when a purple balloon just floats across my vision, still mid-air and in a relatively unpopulated area. Stopped to take some pictures, thankfully balloon was harmless and did not eat me.

© Photo: Ettinsword602

#16

Oh man i work night shift so im driving at funky hours all the time this is my time to shine.

So one time i got sent home early from work (was sick) and i decided to take the longer and slower but safer easier way home (normal way takes me 25-30 min but depending on the lights this way is like 40 min) so i didnt have to concentrate on the road as much. I was going through the town, managed to make all the lights so far, its like 3:15am so noones on the road or anything, cool misty night and as usually i get a red light so i slow down and stop. I know this light is going to take a while so i whip out my phone to find a new song and as im scrolling through spotify to find one i hear a bang on my passenger side door. Scared the s**t out of me and i dropped my phone on the floor and looked over and at first theres nothing at the window but then slowly a middle aged drunk man rises from the bottom of the window smiling like a creep and just stops in the middle of the window and slowly starts tilting his head side to side. Needless to say thats the only time ive ever ran a red light and touched the redline on my car.

Another time i was taking my normal way home, i normally finish at 6 but schduleing issues at work i got sent home at 4am, its around 4:20am now, im doing like 125kph on the back streets heading towards my house, high beams on and music blaring having a grand old time. Come round the corner and its quite a long road but up the road a small ways i see someone in the middle of the road wearing a white hoodie so i flick my high beams off and start slowing down thinking he was gonna move. I stopped say 2 or 3 meters away from “him” and see that its a white sheet drapped over a standing stick thing with a piece of paper attacted in big bold writing saying “Come up close, Have a look”. Now im not sure if it was some teenagers having some fun or if when i got out i was going to get jumped but not being an idiot, I very quickly floored it around the sheet and floored it home. Got home and made triple sure everything was locked.

I have a few more but those 2 are the major ones that jump to mind. Also i am terrible at spelling and at grammar so im sorry for that =(.

© Photo: SoulStarzz

#17

I used to date this girl who lived in a house in the middle of the woods and her driveway was like a mile long single car road. I was driving up it around midnight to go home and my drivers side window exploded and showered me with glass.

Turns out a deer had rammed into the driver side of my car. Completely destroyed that side and I had to get out of the passenger’s side. I never even saw the deer, I assume it ran away but there was a perfect hoof print in one of the doors

Edit – spellin’.

© Photo: User

#18

Bright lights… I have astigmatism and get halo’s on bright lights really bad. When going through construction or something and there are a lot of headlights coming at me it’s [darn] near impossible to see the road. Scares the s**t out of me sometimes.

© Photo: nerrollus

#19

My mom tells this story about when she was young and her mom was driving home from shopping. The car they were in broke down, and in the car behind them a guy gets out and offers to help and fix it there at the side of the road. Thing is, after they were done fixing the car (I think she says they ran out of oil or something like that) the guy, and his car, just disappeared. Gone. Nada. Didn’t see him get in the car and leave, just one moment he and his car where there, and then next they were gone. While the story isn’t particularly scary, but my grandmother was petrified, and they drove quietly all the way home.

© Photo: Lucky_Luna_

#20

Driving west on I-80 from Iowa City to Newton, I saw lightning strike the corn field I was driving past. It was one of those moments where you realize just how dangerous something is.

Still not the scariest.

Coming home one night on some residential streets, I get stopped by a red light. I had my hand out the window and not a care in the world. Suddenly, I felt fur in my left hand. Somehow I didn’t see it when I pulled up but I must have pulled up next to a friendly deer. We have a lot out here but they never really come into the city. I don’t think it knew my hand was out the window and he was just checking out the car, either way it scared both of us. I could hear his hooves running on the street for blocks.

© Photo: Yodoyle

#21

I had just gotten back to the high school after a state dance competition. It was 2am and I’d been up since 4 that morning, so I was extremely tired. I only had to drive 7 miles from the school to my house, and it was a very rural area, so I figured I’d be fine, but I was exhausted. About 1 mile in, I started to see shadowy people walking on highway. Scared the c**p out of me.

The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed that morning. I went outside and found my car in the driveway, turned off but still in drive, with the keys in the ignition. I still don’t know exactly how I got home. That said, I am known for sleepwalking. Yikes!

© Photo: _unmarked

#22

I was driving to a friend’s house during a storm once when I was about 17, almost 18 years ago. The storm was already bad and getting worse by the minute.. this was in west central Texas, where the storms are known to kick up ferociously. Anyway I’m going like 10 miles an hour, trying to see through the storm, when all of a sudden everything stopped. The wind, the rain, everything. During that quick break in the storm, I saw a golden-orange mist, in the shape of a person, move in front of my car, from the right curb to the left… as soon as it approached the left curb, it disappeared, and the storm came back in full force. I’ll never forget it, even though it only seemed to last a few seconds.

© Photo: omylizz

#23

A driver drove past me by my right side.

I was driving in a single lane street next to a cliff on my right and a mountain (no road) to the left. I slammed my brakes and let it sit for some minutes before driving again.

To this day I’m not sure of what I saw.

© Photo: esr95tkd

#24

100% swear this really happened.

Friends and I went to a haunted bridge one night. The story goes that the dad k*lled the entire family back in the 1800s and buried them under the bridge. If you go and put your car in neutral, the kids will push you across the bridge.

We all thought it was stupid but wanted to check it out. We go buy some flower and spread it on the back of the car to “catch” evidence as a joke. The bridge is outside the main city area (Austin, tx) so we didn’t feel it was too scary when we pulled up.

We get to the bridge around midnight and put the car in neutral. I’m driving the car. The road is flat and might even have a slight uphill so the car should not move. The car slowly starts moving forward. Friends think I’m pranking them, which I assure them I am certainly not. I even lift my legs to show them. As we move a little faster I put it in drive and hightail it out of there.

We make it to a gas station and all get out of the car trying to collect ourselves. We go around back and there are little finger prints on the back of the car.

We all swore to never check out an urban legend again.

© Photo: MBerg09

#25

About 25 years ago my sister and I were driving on a normally busy road, but it was late at night and was deserted. We could both see something flapping on the road up ahead. I asked her what it was and my sister said she didn’t know but that it looked like a black garbage bag. I agreed, it really looked like a bag lying on the road being whipped lightly by the wind.

As we approached it completely changed shape. It went from being quite flat and small to morphing into a fully grown man on a bike. He was just standing there in the middle of the road with his bike. We pulled alongside and asked if he was ok. He nodded but didn’t speak. We drove off.

We STILL talk about it because it was the strangest, creepiest thing ever and we both still can’t explain what we saw.

© Photo: Kimberley7462

#26

This was probably 15 years ago. My best friend in high school and I were out late. I don’t remember why. Being dumb teenagers.

Anyway it’s like 1am and we are taking the normal shortcut road back towards her house. Suddenly I see I’m the ditch to my right something lumped and white. It takes about 1.8 seconds for me to realize it looked just like a body lying face down. I say to her “Did you see that in the ditch?! Was that a body?!” She says “I was about to ask you the same thing what the [darn]?!” So she turns around at the stop sign up ahead and goes back. We can’t quite tell from the opposite side of the road if the body was still there. So down we go and turn around again. This time we are just crawling along searching the ditch.

Somehow we both glance up into the trees on a small hill above the ditch and we see it. A person in a white shirt and dark pants crouched next to and slightly behind a tree trunk staring at us. We scream [darn] [end] and she tears a*s out of there and we speed so [intense] back to her house I don’t know how we didn’t die.

When we calmed down the next day we figured it was someone running away? Either was in pretty sure that experience took a year or two off my life.

© Photo: DillPixels

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