48 Chilling Camping Stories That Sound Like Something Straight Out Of A Horror Movie

When I was in Boy Scouts (Pennsylvania, Troop 303), We made a trip to West Point for the annual Army v. Navy game.

Our troop was to spend the night in these really run down old triangular bunk houses at an old camp ground about an hour or so away from the school. Our scout masters were really s****y people, never really bothering to check the condition of the place beforehand, so we were all surprised by the terrible, musty and wood-rotten interiors.

The bunks were rusty and there were d**d bugs everywhere. A lot of us wanted to sleep in the cars instead, but the scoutmaster, a particularly s****y guy in the fold of f*cktards watching us, called us p*ssies and told us to man up.

So we grabbed our sleeping bags and did as we were told. Then, some time in the middle of the night, we started hearing a weird chittering. One of is turned on our flashlights and pointed it up at the vaulted ceiling.

Bats. Lots of them. Not surprisingly, someone screamed and the whole nest started wigging out. Everyone started panicking and running around, which only made the bats wig out even more.

The parent's came running from the other bunkhouse when they heard the screams and got a face full of bats when they opened the door.

My dad took me out of that troop not to long after that.

I was camping in yellowstone on a cold night and I was asleep in my sleeping bag in my tent when I kinda woke up and felt something warm curled up against my legs and I kinda snuggle back down because my dog usually sleeps there... then I realised i wasn't at home so it wasn't her. So I slowly lift my head to see what's in my tent... 2 baby cougars had come in my tent and curled up with me, their mum was curled in the corner. I just laid there, it was magical and scary. At around 5 a.m. they got up and left.

When I was a kid, we used to go on camping trips in the summer with my parents caravan. One year, my sister and I decided that we wanted to sleep in a small tent instead, which was setup directly in front of the caravan. We didn't even make it one night.

Every now and then the both of us clearly heard the sound of something rubbing against the tent. We were scared shitless, because we thought someone was walking around our tent. I don't remember how we got out of the tent, I guess we started screaming for our parents at one point or something. My father took a look around and we tried again but after a while, heard the same sounds again. We ended up sleeping in the caravan anyway.

A few days later we still didn't want to sleep in the tent, so my father started to disassemble it. Turns out, some animals built tunnels directly under the tent and in doing so, rubbed against the bottom wall. We didn't notice anything, because we were lying on inflatable mattresses, we only heard the sound of them, rubbing against the wall.

It's pretty funny now, but d**n were we creeped out at the time.

I was camping in the woods one weekend.

When I got up in the morning someone had made a cup of tea and partially drank it and left out next to my fire.

It was a solo camp.

Was out with a friend for a weekend camping trip in the middle of nowhere North Georgia. We stopped at a local grocery store to stock up on snacks and beer when we found out it was a dry county. We asked the cashier if there was a nearby county where we could buy beer. She gave us directions to a bar that was right across the county line, about a ten minute drive. So we decided that if we couldn’t buy beer we would just stop and have a couple before heading to the campsite. We followed the directions that she gave us and as it was getting dark we pulled up to building with no signs saying it was a bar and had all of its windows bricked in. It had a single lightbulb over the screened door entrance and it seem to be the only light around. We sat in the car for a minute and made several nervous jokes about the movie Deliverance then decided that we didn’t need a drink after all. The next day we were chatting with other campers at the site we were staying at, who seem to be locals, and we mentioned the bar. A couple of them told us independently that that place was not and has never been a bar and that they thought we we’re being lured into trouble.

When I was a kid (12/13 or so) I was camping with Ventures (like boy scouts, but a bit older, co-ed, and like no parental supervision).

We were in a huge national park, a group of 7 of us, all around the same age (12-15). We had a four night/five day hike/camp planned out, and the parents all knew our route and when we were expected back. All of us, despite being young, had multiple years of camping experience, and between 3 and 15 similar camps done.

The trip started out pretty awesome. We made camp the first two nights at our desired sites, it was beautiful out, and we got up to the typical fun that kids get up to. Third night all three of our planned sites have people in them and we end up setting up maybe a little too close to a group of campers. We get our kitchen set up, dinner made, a fire going and then people just kinda start hanging out at our camp.

To re-iterate our ages, the oldest of us is 15. The group starting to mingle with is are all in their early 20s or so. Things start out friendly enough. We're talking about camping, the Algonquin, and the Leafs. We refuse the friendly offers of drinks, and then the pushy ones. The mood turned a bit, and being as young as we are, we're less than tactful about asking to be left alone. Voices were raised, they ended up leaving our camp, then we turned in for the night. I remember hearing their drunken revelry as I feel asleep.

At some point in the middle of the night I wake up to screaming and notice my tent is being shaken violently. I got out of my tent with my flashlight, shoeless and disoriented, and took in the chaos for a few seconds. At least 10 fully grown adults are in our camp breaking our tents, throwing our stuff around and screaming. It ended up devolving into a fight, where me and the other 3 boys I went with got beaten pretty badly. I don't remember much of how the a*****t ended, but apparently when things were dying down they were saying super creepy, s****l, and threatening s**t to the girls.

We packed up to leave before the sun rose, and walked the first couple hours of the trail by flashlight. They'd stolen most of our food, our coleman stove, a lot of our tools, three of the backpacks, all of the girls' undergarments and had damaged one of the tents past the point of being useable as a shelter. We were in the middle of our hike and still had another day and a half of hiking and another sleepless night to spend in the woods.

​

**TL;DR -** I went camping as a kid with some other people my age, we pissed off a group of campers, got beaten up and robbed. All while days away from civilization.

I think I have the creepiest story. We used to have a stationary caravan on a campground right at the northern sea. The campground was very small, there were like 40-50 caravans stationed there and a few empty slots for people with tents. We stayed there for holiday one year and for some reason left a day earlier than we had planned. And in that particular night, someone got m******d right next to our caravan. It was two women sleeping in a rented caravan, and the ex boyfriend of one of the women went to that camping ground at night and stabbed his ex and her friend. They dragged themselves out of the caravan and died right next to our caravan. Our caravan was on the first page of all newspapers, was in the news on tv, it was crazy. Hadn't we left a day early, we'd have seen that women d*e.

When I was in high school, my friends and I went out to a really remote spot in the mountains to camp. Just to get there, you needed a pretty serious off-roader. It was about 30 miles up a super rough road. There were river crossings, huge boulders in the road, and tons of sand pits.

This road took us all day. And all day we didn't see a single other person.
No one passed us, we didn't see anyone camping. Nothing. At one point, one of my friends noted it looked like no one had even driven on the road in awhile. Which was weird, because this was in Colorado and roads/trails like this are really popular.

Something worth pointing out - this road led into a box canyon, which is basically nature's cul-de-sac. The road we were on was the only road in, and the only road out. All around us was massive cliffs. And another thing, we were deep in the mountains, far from any cell service. On top of that, we were in a box canyon, which even if you're next to a city, never has service.

All that said, we eventually got to the spot and set up camp.

Every time we went camping, we played capture the flag. This trip was no exception. We waited for it to get dark, then started.

In the middle of the second round, me and one of my friends, on my team, hop up on the road (which ran parallel to area we were playing in). It seemed like a good way to get around to the other flag.

Walking down road, we began to see a glow coming towards us. Our first thought was its another 4x4 coming towards us. But as it got closer, we realized it was a young woman holding up her phone, looking for service. She was still at a distance, but we could tell she was panicky. She was rushing and stumbling at the same time. She didn't seem drunk. It was weird. We called out:

"Hello?"

No response. But it wasn't just that she ignored us. It was more like she didn't even realize we were there.

We tried again, "You ok?"

Nothing.

As she's passing us, we realize she's crying.

Again, "You ok?"

She stumbles right pass us, never showing a single sign that she saw us. The whole time, just looking at her phone for service.

My friend and I are frozen. We watch her go. Still stumbling, still crying. She rounded a turn, then disappeared.

I yell out to my everyone else to meet back at camp. We do. I tell them what we saw. And I'm not proud to admit this (because it seemed like she needed help) but we got creeped out. We said we'd stay in camp that night, and in the morning, we'd go looking.

The first thing we do in the morning is decide there must be some other people camped down the road. They must know her. So we go down to the end of the road. There's no sign of anyone. Then we decided to go to the entrance of the road and look for the woman. So we drive to the entrance, which took all day. Nothing.

I still feel guilty for not trying harder to help her. But thinking about how she got in that position, it just doesn't make sense. She didn't look like a hiker, she had on regular jeans and a sweater. If she had gotten in the canyon from the other side, it would require a very technical decent. She would have needed gear, and she didn't even have a back pack.

We were pretty sure we were the only ones that had driven down that road in a while, so it's not like someone dropped her off or left her. And the whole time we saw her, she was holding up her phone looking for service. If she knew the area at all, she would know there was no way she was going to find service.

I don't know what to make of it. But I do know that the image of that woman stumbling in the dark, crying, has been seared in my brain ever since.

I have spent a ton of time in the wood, camping and hunting. I was camping with family and we heard the most horrific and animalistic sound coming through the trees. It was night and we had a lantern, so a small ring of light with pitch black beyond. Our dog shot straight up, hackled and the terrifying, gutteral growling and animal screaming got closer. We all braced for some monster to come spilling from the darkness, adrenaline pumping, dog fighting to break free. Suddenly the animals burst into the light....it was two racoons fighting. They stopped, looked at us and kinda had the , "oh s**t" look on their faces and kinda sidled back into the darkness.

To this day it is still the most terrify experience I've had in the wood.

Headed to the toilet block in the middle of the night and see 100 kangaroos sitting motionless staring at you.

Went camping with some new friends once, and one demanded he not share a tent with anyone because he sleepwalks. After we had already made the plans that he would share a tent with one friend while my girlfriend and I would have our own. Said whatever, was kind of pissed about it but left it so we could still enjoy the weekend. Gf and I shared an awkward tent with basically a rando.

That night, I was woken up by my gf who said "[first friends name] is freaking me out." So, I looked outside the tent and dude is just walking in circles. I told her he sleepwalks so we just need to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.

Like 30 sec later, he starts screaming "HELLO?" at the top of his lungs. And that goes on for a while. Just standing in the middle of the campsite screaming. At this point we're all awake and watching him like w*f. Then he turns toward the woods, screams "HELLO," and points his f*****g pistol into the nothingness (luckily away from us.)

Now, up to this point I didn't even know he brought his g*n. So, I went ahead and got mine out too bcuz I was thinking like "s**t, he is going to sleep shoot us." But he doesn't. Instead he put his g*n down, went into his tent, and went immediately back to sleep.

Next morning I asked him what the f**k he was doing. Turned out he waz not asleep and he thought he had heard coyotes, so his first thought was to wander off by himself into the night instead of waking any of us up. I never camped with him again.

A few years later, he made the news for scaring the s**t out of an entire campsite one night because he was running through the woods and firing his g*n erratically because he, "saw Bigfoot and was trying to track him down." Really weird guy.

My Ex and I went camping with one of her friends a few years back. We were sitting around the fire and drinking when this dude just decided he wanted to join us.

Not a y'know, mountain man or anything, just one of those weekend outdoorsman types.

I'd have been fine if he had introduced himself, or bothered to ask if he could share our fire or something but no he just wandered out from the brush and plopped his a*s down without a word. We just sat in silence for what felt like hours but was probably less that a minute before he started talking about his day hiking and making random small talk.

When I was 7 in Florida we went camping near a spring we swam at quite often. I woke up one morning and went down to the spring to wash up and there was a HUGE gater on the bank that hissed at me. It had to be 15-20 feet long, easily 5x my height. I stopped, and noped right out.

I had a moose run through my campsite in the middle of the night. I could feel the vibrations from the ground and it sounded like a car crashing through the woods. Wee!

A couple years ago for my birthday my boyfriend and I went up to a northern Canadian park to go camping (we always do for both our birthdays).

On this particular occasion I remember it being a lot colder during our trip than previous times and within the first few days we were the only people within seeing or hearing distance in the park. It was super cool during the day but one night in particular things became extremely unsettling.

I remember waking up around 3am to a loud humming noise. As I was gaining consciousness, I turned over to see the outline of my boyfriends body in the dark beside me. As one is when waking up in the middle of the night, I was slightly out of it but as I kind of came too and was about to close my eyes and go back to sleep, a near blinding light lit up our campsite beyond the walls of our tent. I could clearly see the outlines of the table, trees, our truck, etc. all beyond the thin layer of fabric that was out tent. Instantly I broke out in a cold sweat and was paralyzed with fear.

Within seconds a figure appeared outside the door of our tent. I went to scream but no sounds came out. It was the figure of a man with a large “bowl like” head and as I watched it’s silhouette approach, it appeared as it was floating. Within what seemed like hours but must have only been seconds, it was in our tent hovering over us. Then I blacked out.

I did used to suffer from sleep paralysis but at this point in my life hadn’t had an episode for years (still haven’t since) and normally it’s only brought on when I’m extremely stressed out.

Not sure what happened this night, but celebrating my birthday is always a fun event and by no means was I feeling any sort of stress or anxiety prior to going to sleep that night.

We left the next morning.

My dad and grandpa like to fish and hunt a lot. One night they decided to spend the night on the river in the Appalachian mountains. It was really late and they said they heard these awful screams coming from the woods on the opposite side of the river. He said it was inhuman and definitely not a mountain lion or anything like that. ( he would know) My dad is a pretty big guy and doesn't scare very easily. But in that moment he was frozen with fear and just held his breath until the screams finally stopped. He felt like whatever it was knew that they were there,and wasn't happy about it. It gives him goosebumps just thinking about it. Needless to say, they won't fish there at night anymore.

This happened on a trip a few years ago one night mid-week, when the park is usually quieter. I woke up having to use the bathroom around 2am, so I left the trailer to go to the comfort stations. The site was one of those corner sites, so there's a really short trail in the back of the site through the woods before you get to the lights where the washroom is. You can technically go around the front, but I figured I would just cut through there like I usually do to save time because I was tired. As I'm passing the middle of the trail, I hear a light noise that sounds like it's right beside my ear. It sounded like giggling? So I picked up the pace a little bit and started looking for a raccoon or porcupine or something (they make weird noises) but I couldn't see anything or hear any twigs cracking which I thought was weird. No sign of a person out there either. As soon as the last thought crossed my mind I swear to this day that I heard something deeper in the woods in a female voice say "Hello?". To say I jumped was an understatement. I sprinted full throttle to the lights, tripped on a log and ripped my pant leg and shin. I made it to the bathrooms alive feeling painful and kind of stupid.

Once I was at the comfort station I did my business, and talked myself out of it being anything unnatural like the good biologist that I am. I figured I must have just misheard a raccoon or something.. I didn't really believe in the paranormal, so worse case it was an actual person. I didn't feel like getting jumped by some weirdo while I'm out at night by myself, so I made the decision to take the longer way back in the open road and skip the shortcut. As I passed by the entrance way for the woods (giving it a WIDE berth if we're being honest), again, I can only tell you what I heard, but I swear as clear as day I heard a whisper that said "come back".

I think that's the fastest I've ever run in my life. I'm a little embarrassed to say I don't do camp bathrooms at night by myself anymore, but I can't explain what happened. Luckily my family got a new trailer the following season with an indoor bathroom so it hasn't been an issue since.

Not necessarily "creepy", but scary af. Was camping, staring at the stars, when a meteorite flew overhead and towards mountain we were camping near, when it exploded. It was probably a couple of miles away when it popped, but sounded like dynamite going off & lit the sky up to almost daytime levels.

My friend and I were in the car ready to leave for a music festival when we got notice it was cancelled. We were all ready to go, so we decided to just drive and find somewhere to camp for the weekend instead.

We ended up in a sort of summer resort area upstate. It was the end of season, so the place was completely empty. But it was pretty, nice lake and scenery, so we figured we'd stay. There were no pesky families with kids to interfere with the partying we intended to do.

The semi-creepy, but friendly attendant assigned us a site, so we drove down to it. We quickly noticed they'd put us in the site that was furthest away from everything. Literally on the edge of the woods, surrounded by empty sites, completely isolated. We thought it was weird, but still, it was what we wanted, to just drink and smoke in the woods in peace.

So we set up camp, then f****d around until it got dark. As soon as we settled down in the tent and put out the lantern, we heard an unmistakable sound - off to the left of us, where there was nothing but empty campsites, maybe 100 yards away - someone was slowly and deliberately sharpening an axe or a knife against stone. Long, slow, metallic strokes. Over and over and over.

My friend was terrified, but I was laughing, thinking this attendant guy was obviously f*****g with us city slickers. She insisted we would have heard him coming, and decided to call the check-in booth. He was there. It was almost half a mile away, there's no way he could've gotten there in time, and we could still hear the sharpening sound. And the attendant guy confirmed there was no one in the place except us.

We ended the night locked in the car, holding a can of bear mace. My friend fell asleep, but I watched and listened all night. Shortly before sunrise, the noise stopped. The sun came up, and there was nobody around anywhere. Still can't explain it.

My girlfriend at the time and I went camping 5 hours away from home for her birthday/our anniversary. We made the trip the day after a big storm passed through. We left town early and got there in the early afternoon.

The guy at the entrance to the camp grounds mentioned there was NO ONE else staying there that weekend. We were like, "Oh, this is gonna be sick!!"

First, we drove down these long pathways to our designated area. As you got closer to it, the road narrowed. So basically, you had to back out to get out. We unloaded the car, got the tent set up, and decided to go walk around the woods. It was d**d silent. But it was still bright out, so we just took in all the nature we could and walked a few miles away. We reached this point in the woods where there were some.... weird looking white cabins. They were very uniform, all built the exact same way. Like, I guess they were a part of the camping grounds but they seemed WAY out of the way, and there was no sign of life. It felt eerie to be at, like we shouldn't be there.

So we turned around and walked back. We took a breather in the tent, then tried to start a fire in the fire pit. Unfortuntely, neither of us had ever been camping before, and had no idea how to start a fire. We had bought some of those self-lighting logs from Walmart and some lighter fluid. But... everything else around us was soaked to the bone from the rain that had passed through the day before. We knew we needed kindling of some sort, but any dry sticks or leaves was far and few between.

Eventually, we got a small fire going and ate hot dogs and marshmallows and spent some time look at the stars. Then we noticed just how DARK it was out there. My girlfriend was easily spooked and was like, "can we get into the tent now?"

So we put the fire out and crawled into the tent. We were talking to each other but I could tell she was tense. Suddenly, she put her hand over my mouth and was like, "Shhh! Do you hear that?"

Before I could respond, we heard footsteps. Like... heavy footsteps. It sounded like a group of people walking. I whispered to her, "It's probably just animals or something."

Then we heard mumbling. Like, low mumbling. We couldn't make out words, but it didnt sound like a sound an animal could make. It sounded like words but hushed and non-elaborted.

We sat in silence staring at each other in the dark for what felt like FOREVER. The mumbling got louder, as did the footsteps, until it sounded like it was right outside of our tent. We both froze. I don't think either of us were breathing.

And then.... silence. We waited and waited and waited. I'm still not sure how much time passed. Eventually, my girlfriend said, "We have to get to your car."

The adrenaline was pumping, so I peeked out of the tent into the darkness and told her to stay behind me, then we RAN to the car. I locked the doors and she was like, "WHAT THE F**K WAS THAT?? WE CAN'T STAY HERE. NO ONE IS OUT HERE BUT US. WHAT WAS THAT??"

I kept looking around for any signs of life, but we were seemingly alone. I looked at her and was like "okay.... I'm gonna grab our stuff, you stay in the car." We only had our ice chest and our tent out. I hopped out and ran, grabbed our ice chest, tossed it into the backseat. As I turned around to go get the tent, I started hearing footsteps closing in again.

In a moment of pure terror, I YANKED the tent out of the ground, wrapped the tarp around it, and slung it over my shoulder like some panicked Santa Clause and shoved it into the trunk. I didn't say anything when I got in the car except "do we have everything in here??" My girlfriend said yes and I FLOORED it in reverse out of our camping area.

Then we came to a fork in the road that went in like 6 different directions. I asked my girlfriend if she remembered which path we came down to get in here and she told me she didn't know. We chose a random one and ended up in a different camping spot. I cursed under my breath and slammed it into reverse again.

Then I noticed from the angle we had exited from, I could see the main path back to the gate, thanks to a small sign behind an overgrown bush. As we hightailed it out of there, I noticed there was a single, small green light out in the woods to our right (near where our designated spot was.)

We drove the entire 5 hours back to our hometown and fell asleep on my girlfriend's parents' couch at around 4AM. We never talked about the trip ever again, and I haven't had any desire to camp since lol.