“Footsteps Outside My Tent”: 43 Terrifying Experiences People Have Had In The Woods

My family used to go camping with a few groups of friends when I was a kid. I remember one Christmas when I was about 5 we were camping out in the bush. There were 9 kids in total at our campsite. We were allowed to wander through the bush. The parents would give us a walkie talkie to tell us when to come back to camp (we never wandered far).
Anyway, out of nowhere an unfamiliar voice came over our walkie talkie. It was a man's voice. He said he was Santa and that he was trying to find us to give us our presents and asked us to look for him. We all ran back to our campsite all excited that Santa had talked us.
The walkie talkie was taken off us and we weren't allowed to go anywhere for the rest of the trip. We were pretty devestated at the time. But I understand the seriousness and creepiness of it now looking back as an adult.

Guide camp in Victorian bushland. Girl guides are a paramilitary exercise in the British tradition.

My troop was competing in a camp competition. We were the futherst from the mother house, down the hill and put of sight of every other camp site.

One night we were all dead asleep in our tent. 8 pre teen girls. We heard snuffling and loud grunting around the tent. Then the tent started to move and shake. This was a ex army 8 person tent. Wooden beams and something was shaking the tent.

One beam started to some loose and 2 girls made a run to the mother house. The rest of us tried to keep out tent up. We then heard a louder thud and screaming "get up get up get up".

By now we'd woken half the camp site.


Turns out a family of wombats was upset we were on prime grazing area and was pushing the annoyance away. One of the girls had tripped over a wombat.

This happened to some friends of mine in Sydney, Australia. When we wanted to go underage drinking we would buy a case of beer or bottle of spirits and hike about 4kms into the bush to the middle of no where to drink without worrying about getting into trouble. Would sleep in a sleeping bag under the stars in summer and be fine.

So one afternoon my friends, without me this time, headed off with beer to the usual camp spot we'd use. Being young and stupid no one checked the weather forecast otherwise they'd have know heavy rain was on the way.

In the middle of the night 5 drunk teenagers left the camp site to shelter in caves near by. The caves sit high up overlooking a large fork in the Hawksberry River. Soaked from the rain and cold, they started to dig a fire pit. Unfortunately they dug up human remains, were too drunk to return home so spent a miserable night in the rain waiting for dawn. Didn't dare stay anywhere near the caves.

The police investigated and discovered the remains were an very old aboriginal burial site and were relocated to avoid being accidently disturbed again.

I thought I heard a bear so I go to chase it off. I grab my hatchet and run towards it screaming "Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!" Then suddenly I'm surrounded with 2 large animals 1 between me and the camp and one still deeper into the woods. Then I hear the most haunting sound I've ever heard. It was a banshee sound that sounded human but not quite and I heard it traveling very fast in the same direction as one of the large animals. I didn't sleep well that night. I checked for prints in the morning and saw some deer tracks but no idea what made that sound. Then 9 years later I was nearby and shouted "Aiaiaiaiaiai" to scare away the bears before going to bed. Then I heard the sound again. I'm alone, armed to the teeth against anything with claws but this sounds like some humanoid cryptid. Then I'm hearing it surround me, whatever it is it's circling me and it's close. Suddenly I realize the sound is slightly above me. It was a mocking bird.

Was somewhere in the middle of the White Mountains in the summer when I walked into what looked like a scene from a horror movie.


A person with zero hiking, camping, or other experience had gotten themselves in trouble - big trouble. It was around 7am when I found the campsite. First thing that hit me was the eerie stillness, until I noticed the shredded tent under a tree, and the desperate looking human figure covered in blood, whimpering quietly. I put my bag down, grabbed my kit and went over to the person - they looked like they had just lost a knife fight with a 4 armed man. Deep slashes from one shoulder to hip, single punctures up and down his back, and hands and forearms full of what looked to be defensive cuts. I patched him up the best I could, gave him water, checked my map and high tailed it to the closest road (this was before cell phones were super prevalent and barely worked in the mountains). Thankfully, the road was very close by - less than 2 miles, and I was able to flag someone down. They took off and I waited for assistance to arrive. It took about an hour until rescue arrived, and I led them to the still unidentified individual (he was not very conversive when I helped him out) - I was sure he wouldn't be alive anymore, but was wrong. I assisted rescue bringing him out, and took them up on their offer to head into town and get cleaned up. After cleaning up and getting myself situated at their station, I went on my way, leaving them my number to call to let me know what was up with the person we helped out.


I got home 3 days later, and there was a message on my machine. The story was that the guy I found decided to go camping one day and heard that he had to keep food hung from a tree to keep bears away. Well, he did that, but put it almost directly over his tent, and not high enough. The night before I happened upon the site, a bear had used the tent, and it's occupant, in attempt to climb the tree to get to the food. The guy had woken up to four black bear paws sinking into his body, shifting to reach up. Dude survived, and swore to the hospital staff that he was "moving to the city and never going into the woods again.".

I think this fits.. I was on a long hike in the Oregon Cascades to a small lake. I came across a a abandoned camp fire that was spreading out from the rock ring. The area was about the size of a small car. I rushed to dig a fire break and ran up and down the hill to the lake for water. Took me about a dozen trips with my sleeping bag stuff sack to extinguish it. I was 100% sure a forest fire would have broke out.

The scariest situation is when I thought I was having a heart attack. Was hours away from help, and I had to walk there. Was just a panic attack.

Here late, but the scariest thing I have had happen so far was a Moose came crashing through my campsite in the middle of the night. It sounded like a freight train crashing through trees. Woke me up in the middle of the night. Found out in the morning it had ran right by my tent. They don't have great eyesight and I was about 2 feet from being trampled by 1,000lbs of moose.

I was was camping alone on a beach a few years ago. At just after three am, I woke up to a strange sound, like something was gently brushing up against the tent. The waves were pretty loud, so I wasn’t sure. As I started to fall back asleep, I heard it again. This time, I sat up. Suddenly, the sides of my tent were getting pushed in. I could see the shapes of hands pushing it in on all sides. No sounds came from outside other than the ocean. I was too terrified to even say a word. I’ve never been that scared in my life. After a few seconds that felt like an hour, it suddenly stopped. I waited for a few minutes, then unzipped the tent and poked my head out and flicked on a flashlight. There were shoe prints all around the tent. I figure it was probably just some kids messing with me...

Backpacking with 15 year old daughter. 6 miles in we had climbed over a plateau and down into a canyon. We were filling up water bottles when she slipped on a wet rock and obliterated her ankle. No cell phone signal, no means to contact the outside world. As I watched her ankle swell, all I could think about was how stupid I was to get my kid into this situation. I quickly gained my wits, stopped panicking, made camp, and distributed anti-inflamatories. The next morning I made a makeshift splint and decided we would be better off following the creek out because climbing out of the canyon did not seem like a feasible option. It was in the upper 30s and we had to cross waist deep water multiple times. Took a whole day to get out but we made it, daughter was a trooper every step of the way. It turned out to be more of a bonding and learning experience than I ever could have imagined and now we have a great story. Ankle was badly sprained but she recovered after about 6 or 7 weeks.

A few years ago a new hiking buddy climbed up a waterfall, slipped on some pine needles on the top and fell 40 feet down onto rock. I was the first person there, blood pouring out of head, broken spine, shine broke thru the skin. He bit below his mouth and pretty much had a second mouth. It took an hour or 2 for medics to get to us and another 2 hours to use ropes to lift him out of the valley to a helicopter. Miraculously, he was out of the hospital after a few months and eventually regained full movement. All medical experts were shocked he made a full recovery. Most traumatic event of my life by far.

Someone’s backpack, jacket, and wallet left on the edge of a two thousand cliff in a popular national park. Rangers found the body at the bottom the following day.

Not really f****d up but scared the fuuuck outta me...

One time a buddy and I were camping around Diamond Lake in Oregon. I can't remember the exact name of the site but it was around that area.

This was the off season and we were the only ones camping around this lake area. It was pitch black out there with he exception of our camp fire. So around 1 in the morning we were just chillin.


The area we were at had a hill just above us with a lot of trees and bushes on it. We're sitting there and we start hearing a cracking sound then a HUGE CRASH and something sounding like it's rolling and then another huge smash!

We get the flashlight on looking up the hill and all we can see is dust and debris falling down. Were totally freaked out. We didn't know what happened. But we decided to go to bed.

Well the next morning when we woke up we notice a gigantic old tree that had fallen and started rolling down the hill. You could see where it broke off up the hill and rolled all the way down breaking smaller trees along the way.

It was probably 30 feet tall and was big and chonky. It was only stopped by 3 other trees that held it back up the hill. It would've rolled RIGHT through our campsite if the other trees hadn't stopped it!

I was freaked out the night before but seeing it in the light of day was way more terrifying.

Walking a section of the Appalachian Trail with a couple of buddies when we happened across a bundle of sticks. The sticks were made into a figure, kinda similar to the ones from the Blair Witch Project. It was obviously placed there by someone, as it was dead-center on the middle of the trail, leaning against a rock. I thought it was cool, so I grabbed it and put it in my backpack.

Anyway, we finished the hike and set up for the night in our camping spot. We were all pretty wiped out from the long day, so after dinner we retired to our respective tents and conked out for the night.

The next morning, I was the first one awake, so I got up to make the coffee, and what did I find? An identical bundle of sticks to the one we'd found, sitting atop the pile of charred wood from the previous night's fire.

First thing I did was check my pack, and sure enough the one I'd picked up was still there.

Each of my friends swore they didn't put it there, and I obviously said the same. It was weird because we were all adamant about not putting it there, but I can never be sure one of them wasn't messing with the other two of us.

The thing that messes with me is the bundle I found in the morning was almost an exact replica of the one we found on the trail earlier. And, I find it hard to believe one of the other guys could have made such a close replica without being able to model it after the one in my pack. And it's not like either would have placed the one on the trail beforehand for us to stumble upon, as it was FAR out in the middle of nowhere.

I want to believe one of them pulled a prank on the other two because the alternative scares me.

I posted this on another thread back in August, but figured I’d share again. Of the countless hours I’ve spent in the woods, it’s the one time, the only few seconds, that I can’t explain.

I distance hike when I can. Sometimes this means getting up early, or staying out late, to get as many miles in as possible. Sometimes, walking in the pitch dark with a low light headlamp gets spooky.

I grew up in the woods of this area. I’ve slept under our canopy of stars more nights than I can count. I’ve trekked thousands of miles of trail, river bank, lake shore, ridge, bottoms, bogs, and creeks. I’ve hunted the game. I’m establishing this because it’s important you understand I‘ve heard, seen, and smelt about all this region has to offer in the way of wilderness.

My scariest experience though happened at about 0430 in the morning. It was late spring, so the first morning light wouldn’t be visible in the tree tops for another 30-45 minutes; another hour past that until sunrise. I was on mile five.

I’m in a low bottom that’s wedged between two steep ridges. The trail I’m on was narrow, muddy, and completely hemmed in by thick underbrush, young maple, and old oak growth. I’m focused on the small light from my headlamp, just one step after the other, zoned out. Then I heard a loud CRACK! And I froze solid.

This is the part I have trouble describing. 0430 in springtime means I’m the only thing making noise. No birds chirping, nothing. Dead quiet.

Mid-step I froze. When fight or flight kicks in you have these immediate instinct thoughts. The thought that instantly flashed in my mind as I stood there balancing myself into silence was, “If I hear that again, I’m turning around, and I’m going back the way I came in a hurry.”

Why? Because that sound was not a branch breaking. It wasn’t deadfall. It wasn’t a widow maker. I was sure I had just heard something intentional. Hearing it twice, well, that meant get outta here. To describe it as best I can, it sounded like a decent sized wooden stick being violently whacked against a smallish tree. More a fungo bat sized stick, than a baseball bat. The distinction in my head being that this sound was a crack, and not a thud or thump. And I have described it as, “explosive,” in the past because it was so sudden, and so terribly loud. I had the sense that it was about fifty yards directly in front of me, and it was loud, and clear.

Now, as I stood there, completely spooked, I realized the soon-to-be worst part of my situation. I knew where the sound came from. And I knew where the trail went. In about thirty yards, I was going to come to a 180 degree turn and start up the ridge going away from the creek. This meant, as soon as I got the courage to move towards this noise, I was going to have to turn my back to it, and get up that ridge. This made me very nervous.

Minutes pass. I just breathe my foggy breath into my glasses, and listen. Nothing. Quiet. I’ve got about 20-30 minutes until first light. I crank up the headlamp, and start to slowly creep to the 180 turn. When you wear a headlamp in the woods at night, every tree branch in front of you casts a big black moving shadow on the trail. It didn’t help.

I get to the turn, and quickly make the bend. I’m moving pretty fast at this point. Trying to be quiet. Taking tiny, shallow breathes so I can listen while humpin it up the trail.

And then I smell it. A stench hits me that I can’t describe. I just imagined wet, rotten. I’ve actually worked scenes where humans have expired in a past life as a firefighter. This was like days old decomposition, but it just smelled, strange.

I kept walking fast. By the time I made the top of that ridge, I was huffing, and the first light was showing. I didn’t stop moving until full light was out, and the birds were chirping.

I’ve heard it all in our woods. I’ve smelled it all. I’m telling you, I don’t know what the hell that was. Deadfall, and especially leafed out branches, make a lot of noise on the way down. I’ve heard it many times.

I don’t know.

Walking out to a deer blind pre-dawn in the texas hill country, hunted the same area for 25 years, got the big spook, to the point I drew my pistol and turned on the weapon light, scanning the area around me, walking backwards at times etc. Crawled up in my tree blind and got settled in. But I just could not shake the spook. Sun finally rose and my tension started to ease off. Saw something big and low moving in the brush about 70 yards out but couldn’t see it clearly because there were still deep shadows. Little while later I see something weird walking across the sendera about 150yds out. I scoped it and the only mountain lion I have ever seen in the wild was very causally crossing the sendera, stop for a few seconds and I swear looked right at me, then moved along. I stayed up that tree a long long time and I finally came down late in the afternoon while the sun was high and I had been seeing game move around me for a while.

10 years ago when I was a skinny little 17 year old I was hiking the rural side of a levee with a friend who was even scrawnier than I was. It was a long, long, walk Into the woods and for about an hour or more we hadn't seen anyone else. Just trees and foliage. We finally stumbled upon a huge *nest* looking area. It was so random and out of place so we investigated. There was paper and cloth everywhere, torn magazine pages, old clothes, cans, everything piled into one huge mess. We assumed maybe people drove their truck out here and dumped their trash, so we just turned to leave but in that very moment we saw a tall rugged man wearing all black staring right at us. He was maybe 6ft3, had shaggy unkept hair, and looked dirty and disturbed. He stood 15 feet away, and he was just staring and silent. My friend didn't say something so I said "Hi. Do you live here....is this your stuff?" And he only nodded yes and then we slowly backed away and left. He just stared at us until we could no longer see him anymore and then we picked up speed to get back to civilization.

Me and a group of 20 others were hiking in a 2 person side to side line through thick woods at around 1am. We managed to find a muddy road which we continued to walk over for miles before going back into the woods.

While walking on the muddy road, I held a conversation with one of my friends that was to the right of me. After a while of talking, I noticed that my group was further ahead of me then before so I picked up the pace. As I got closer, I noticed something odd. The friend I was talking too was already with the rest of my group. I asked him how did he get back so quick and he turned, looked at me and said, “I was wondering where you were, you disappeared for a good 5 minutes.”

Let’s just say I didn’t feel alright after hearing those words. I know for a fact I was speaking to him earlier, and if not him, then someone exactly the same with all the same gear... luckily nothing happened after that, but I was pretty shook for the rest of the hiking night.

This all happened in Poland when I was a teenager part of what I call “survivalist camp”

Tldr:
I went hiking with a group of 20 people, fell behind due to slow pace, thought I was talking to my friend that was next to me but turns out he was with the rest of the group and not with me.

I was hiking across Newfoundland, following an old railway that was long ago disassembled and turned into a giant trail, sleeping wherever I found myself at night.

One day I ran into a small cottage town, except everything was abandoned. Trailers falling apart, bus conversions burnt out, small cabins all shuttered up. It was creepy but interesting at the same time. The sun was waning so I decided to set up camp in a mostly empty lot that had an abandoned truck slowly falling into a ravine near it. Cooked up some food and crawled into my tent to sleep.

I wake up sometime in the night and I hear footsteps outside my tent. At first I think its an animal but the steps sound like someone walking, a human. The steps get closer and go around my tent. I slowly and quietly pull out my knife, if he tries to get in my plan is to stab first and ask questions later. Anyone trying to get into my tent at night in the middle of nowhere is looking to do some kind of harm. My heart is racing at this point but I try to just be quiet.

Luckily the steps start moving away from the tent until I can't hear them anymore. I wait a bit to see if they'll come back but I don't hear anything. I slowly get out of my tent, I don't see anything. Without turning on my flashlight I quickly take down everything and stuff it into my bag. After that I just started walking down the trail to get the hell out of there. I walked until daytime, came across a road and flagged down a truck. That guy was nice and drove me to town where I got a hotel.

The creepy thing, when I think back to it, was that whoever that was likely watched me walk into town from one of the abandoned structures. I'm guessing a squatter. I'd like to think he was just curious but I'm glad I didn't stay and wait to see if he'd be back.

Woke up after camping in the Rockies to find cat prints the size of softballs encircling my hammock. I never even heard a single noise that night and the prints were no more than fifteen feet away. Luckily, I didn’t have any food that piqued it’s interest.