43 Long-Haul Truckers Reveal Nightmarish Encounters That Still Haunt Them

I’m a truck driver in the UK.
Was driving through rural Scotland one night going down a country lane, all off a sudden I start to see flashing lights come through the trees. Lights of all colours flashing through the trees and causing some really freaky looking shadows on the road.

I’m not a believer of aliens or anything but my first thought was ufos. Safe to say I put my foot down and got out of there.

Found out the next day it was rave happening in a field. But at the time it didn’t half scare me.

I'm not a long haul trucker, but I drove a moving truck across Nebraska. Theres a point where you're going freeway speed, but the scenery doesnt change. It's a very strange sensation and it seemed to last far too long. I started to f***k out at one point because I had the thought that I've ALWAYS been driving through Nebaska and I always will be. Everything else that has happened in my life must have been a hallucination, as theres nothing but Nebraska in the horizon. Nebraska is the truth. Nebraska is life.

Not a trucker, but I was driving through Nevada on a long ride trip. About 3 am, sun barely starting to peek out. My sister was asleep in the passenger seat and my parents asleep in the back seat, so it was just me, on a straight stretch of highway in the middle of the desert. I was exhausted and extremely bored from the lack of scenery when suddenly, directly in front of me, up in the pale sky, there was a flash of green and a green meteor carved towards the horizon before flashing green again and disappeared. At first I thought it was a UFO or something, but I later read meteors can burn green if they have copper in them. Now I think fondly back on that meteor, my family was asleep for it, no one around for miles. I like to think that it was just for me.

This is my Father’s story and he wasn’t a long haul trucker but rather a 18 year old gas station attendant in the late 70’s and without a certain Long Haul Trucker I probably wouldn’t be here:

The gas station was 24 hours and my Dad was the only one working the night shift (11-7 I think). A guy comes in and just gives him the creeps. Seems sketchy. He was wearing tight jacket/pants and you could tell he had something in his pants under the jacket. It was during the summer and was warm so why is he wearing a jacket to begin with? **It was later confirmed he was on d***s.**

A lot of truck drivers used this station as it was the only one open 24 hours for a long stretch of the highway. They also had a big lot where they let truckers park and sleep or take a break.

On this night at this time it was just my dad, sketchy dude, and one trucker in there he kinda knew (as in, came in frequent enough to be conversational) and asked if he’d stay in the station and hang out until sketchy dude left. Well, after “looking” at the stocked shelves for several minutes while sneaking peaks at my dad behind the counter the sketchy guy eventually looked fed up and got into his blue car and sped off. Cool trucker guy hung out with my dad a little longer until another couple of guys came in to use the booths they had to eat a sandwich. .

I should also point out this was pretty middle-of-nowhere rural Southeast United States and the 1970’s. CB and landline was it. My dad only had a landline in the store. **Dad did not have any protection or weapon of any kind.**

So the hours pass and my dad had shaken off the paranoia when all of a sudden this ~~truck driver~~ **guy in a car** comes hauling a*s into the lot, jumps out, and sprints into the store hollering he needs a phone. **He didn’t have a CB nor did he see a phone at the other station. He also wasn’t familiar with the area and my Dad’s station was the first place he found.**

Calls 911 to report that he had walked in on a gas station 40 miles back (next closest station) to find the attendant shot and dead. No one else around. And the only other piece of information is that a blue car was speeding out of the lot when the trucker pulled in.

Apparently they eventually apprehend the guy in the blue car, my dad confirms it was sketchy dude from earlier in the night, and they charge him with m****r and armed robbery.

To the long haul trucker who waited around with my dad that night, thanks and hope you’re keeping it real.


**Also worth adding that apparently sketchy guy in blue car was already a bad apple who was either being looked for or on probation or something. He was in the system.**

**Creepiest**

Driving ~~I-40~~ I-30 through Texas and Arkansas, I would see what looked like animals/faces popping out of the bushes but longer than a glance proved nothing there. They had just paved the highway, and there was hardly any traffic. I was dead tired, it was super dark. Highway hypnosis I suppose.

**"Paranormal"**

When I went to local driving, my route ran near an Air Reserve Base in Indiana, so you'd see planes and helicopters pretty often. One night, about 2 AM, I was headed to pick up another load when I saw a bright green light in the corner of my windshield. It was too low to be an aircraft. It moved pretty slowly, then darted and I lost sight of it behind some trees I drove by. Typical "I saw a UFO" s**t, but I still think it was just a helicopter or a jet that I saw at the prefect angle that turned after a takeoff. The jet pilots have broken the sound barrier over town a couple times in the past (sonic boom) so a jet flying abnormally isn't necessarily out of the realm of possibility.

**Just bat***t crazy**

Driving South on I-75 in the winter in Ohio, I witnessed a compact car like a Cobalt or similar get on the on-ramp to merge in to I-75 North and lost control. They went sideways, fell at least 6 feet off the ramp and onto the shoulder of the interstate landing on all 4 wheels, spun 360 degrees, and then proceeded to merge into traffic like it was f*****g nothing. Blew. My. F*****g. Mind. The CB radio was going f*****g nuts for about 5 minutes. "HOLY S**T WHO ELSE JUST F*****G SAW THAT?", etc.

My dad has told me this story a couple times and each time it always kind of weirds me out. He is not a trucker but when he was in the military one night him and a buddy went out to get food. About halfway into their drive down a dark road my dad and his buddy noticed a woman in a red dress with black hair walking.

My dad and his buddy found it odd because it didn't seem safe and it wasn't that warm. My dad said deep down he knew stopping was a bad idea and so the drove by a little more slowly to get a glimpse to see if she needed help. As the drove by my dad and his friend both swear she has no face. Instead there was just a black hole as if she had been in a wreck and her face was taken off. It freaked them both out so badly my dad floored it and when they stopped to eat both of them agreed they saw the same thing. Come to find out a woman had been k****d earlier that year in an accident. They were talking about it when a stranger told them the sightings of the woman were actually common.

I am not one to believe in the paranormal but the story is still kind of weird.

EDIT: Guys I will reiterate that I never said I believed in the paranormal. I never said "this story is true and there is no scientific explanation." I just told a story and whether you find some value in it or not is ultimately dependent upon who you are and what you value.
Regardless of how cliché or silly something like this might sound I always like to state the fact that we are all human. When we see or hear something we don't understand our minds get to us and it makes us more paranoid or begs us to continue questioning what we experienced. That is something humans just do. If you are out in the woods and you hear a noise and you are alone and it's dark you instinctively question your safety and become paranoid. We want answers and we want to know we are okay.

I don't need scientific explanation because I am aware that the brain does things we don't understand. But what we do understand is that when cant find an explanation it drives us nuts and scares us the black my dad saw was probably just bad or poor lighting or the heat of the moment and the brain didn't get the ladies features. Perhaps the woman had hair in front her eyes. There all sorts of explanations that make way more sense, but when faced with the same circumstance we would probably all react the same way and question our sanity.

When I was a kid I grew up in the cab of my father's truck. He was a single father and I was on the road with him quite a bit. Occasionally if he was going to pass near my grandmother's house he would drop me off there for a week or so, I'm sure to give himself a break from a very young son in a very tight space. One time when he was nearing my grandmother's house I remember crying because I didn't want him to drop me off. I loved my grandmother very much but I was attached to my father for some reason. Separation anxiety I'm sure (thanks mom). As I was sobbing I started recognizing my surroundings and knew we were close. I decided the next song on the radio was going to be "dad's song" so every time I heard it I would think of him. "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" by Elton John came on the radio so that chipper tune became the song I used to remember him. That was in the early 80s and I can't remember hearing that song over the last 20+ years. Three years ago I was driving to see my dad in the hospital and I stopped at a truck stop for gas and snacks. What song should start playing over the truck stop's speakers but "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues". I got a sick nervous feeling. Was this a good omen or bad one? I'm not superstitious so I tried to dismiss it and chalked it up to chance. April 11 will be 3 years since I lost him. Surely it was just a random occurrence that I would hear that song going to see him for the last time right? I'm not superstitious or religious but I sure would like to see the old man again some day.

I was 23, my newly married husband and I decided driving team would be a fun adventure after college - rather than jumping into the 9-5.

I was down in Arizona, on a long stretch of nothing about 4am when a guy pulled up next to me waving his CB (I never left mine on, listening to those guys BS was irritating.)

I turned on my CB and he told me I had a blown tire. I thanked him, figuring I would stop at the next truck stop.

He kept harassing me to pull over and check my tire for a good 40 miles.

I finally got to a next town and pilot truck stop, got out and checked my truck. No blown tires anywhere.

No clue what that guy would’ve done to me - but so glad I trusted my gut and didn’t stop.

(Not paranormal - but I have plenty of stories as a young woman on the road.).

I was coming back home from a trip from Michigan and I saw these people wearing cult-like robes. One in town, one on a highway, and one in a park, all staring at me.

Myself and 2 friends had to drive from Laredo, TX to Baton Rouge, LA one night in my Ford van. It was about 2am. There is a particularly long and dark section of highway just outside Laredo...no buildings, towns or lights for about 50 miles. I was in the right lane coming up on a truck and pulled out into the left passing lane. As I was slowly overtaking this long truck, my peripheral vision caught a sudden movement of this big truck towards the right shoulder. I saw the truck was swerving to avoid hitting a person dressed in all white, white face...who's arms were folded across the chest and eyes were closed as they walked across the highway. I swerved to the left and barely missed this ghostly looking person with my passenger mirror....can still remember seeing that the eyes were closed....that's how close we came to hitting this person...

A few years ago some animal rights activists managed to release thousands of mink from a farm next to a large road, at night. The road was more blood than tarmac for miles. Remains everywhere and don't even get me started on the smell.

I’m a stand-up comic. I often refer to my profession as being a trucker with jokes.

Near the north end of mainland Michigan, I saw a car stopped on the side of the highway. We hadn’t seen a car for a while, it was 2AM. I commented to my buddy, “poor b*****d”.

But as we passed the car, the lights came on and it got back on the road. Odd timing. And then, it was gaining on us.

I told my friend to speed, he did. He sped more and the car kept closing in. We were doing 120 and this guy was catching up to us.

We saw an exit with a hotel so we took it and drove right in front of the building, where it was well lit and we could see the front desk clerk.

The car got off that exit too. It drove into the hotel parking lot. Then turned around, and got back on the highway.

I’ll never know what that guy wanted from us. I’m fine with that remaining a mystery.

I’m not a long haul trucker, but I was on a kind of long road trip one night. Was about 1-2am. Saw a huge flash out towards the right rear passenger side. Almost like stadium lights turned on then off real quick. So bright and white, it was crazy.

Thing is, I was on a major interstate, in the middle of a forest, no cars around me. My first thought was an angel or something.

To this day I’m still stumped.

I was driving near Las Vegas at around 3am. I had been following a few black SUV's along the highway for a good hour or so. They had Nevada plates that were single digit numbers in order, 1,2,3. Suddenly they all pulled off the highway down a dirt path. There was no mile marker or cactus that would indicate a path there. It was just dirt. After pulling off the road they all turned their lights off. I didn't stick around. It was creepy.

I was in rural Maine looking for a lumber mill just before sunset. It took hours to get out there because maine is riddled with these narrow windy roads that try and get as close as possible to every building in every village from US 1 to Canada. So I pull in just as the last guy is leaving, I ask him were to park and say I'll see him in the morning. I park my truck in this fairly large gravel parking lot with thick forest right on all sides. There are no visible artificial lights except for my truck and my flashlight. After I get parked I go and sitout in a lawn chair and just enjoy the warm night air and look at the absolutely beautiful night sky. It was a rare treat to enjoy basically no light pollution.

As I'm looking at the stars, like a switch was flipped, what sound like fifty coyotes, sixty feet away, start howling like mad. It is at this point I nope right back into the truck and don't open the door until sunrise.

The town of West Salem, Wisconsin as always kind of given me the shivers. It's like it's both empty and full of people at the sametime. Nothing Concrete just feels like things aren't quite right in that town.

Obligatory not a long haul trucker but once in the middle of nowhere (no buildings/cars for miles) in rural Canada at 3am a person jumped out on the road in front of my truck and started waving a flashlight at me and flailing his arms. I swerved hard and kept driving and ended up calling the police about 5 minutes later. I hope he was alright but that’s not how you get yourself picked up...

Same road different trip I almost ran over an owl at about the same time of night.

Not a trucker but I've driven cross country a few times. Have two freaky things that have happened.

First, middle of the night with a buddy and we pulled off to the side of the highway to take a p**s and switch drivers. Nobody else around on the road. I walk to the side, pitch black, whip it out and start to pee. My buddy is just stretching his back or whatever. I heard something in the woods shake a tree. No other way to describe it, a tree about 30 feet away shook. Then I hear something BIG crashing through the woods coming straight for us and the car. My buddy and I don't even say anything, he dives in the driver side and I jump through the passenger window, pants still down. He floors it out of there, legs and pants dangling outside. Never did see anything in the rear view mirror but there was something out there coming at us. My buddy likes to say he heard me stop peeing when that tree shook.

Second, I was solo somewhere in West Virginia, again middle of the night. I got off an exit, one of those long curvy ones. I saw lights before I got off and assumed it was exit stuff, or maybe even construction. Get to the exit and it's not construction, it's a ton of army or national guard guys. The exit was lit up brighter than day time, so many lights set up pointing everywhere. The army guys were completely decked out, gas masks on and a*****t rifles. They were sprinting around. One guy at the corner was frantically waving me through to get back on the highway. I gunned it out of there. Looked in the news later and didn't see anything, no idea what was going on that night.

I'm a trucker. Got a good pic of a cadaver on the side of the road. Posted it on r/truckers a week ago, you can find it on my posts.

I interact with motorists everyday when I'm out trucking, whether it's sort of in traffic, or just in general in the truck stop as people standing in line for their food and coffee, going to the bathroom.

I'm aware I'm like king of the road in my massive truck, but when people's cars go past, I like to think of those cars being occupied by "loved one's". So even if they're a road raging piece of s**t, they're still somebody's loved one's and it's part of my duty of operating the heaviest vehicles that they make it home safe just as much as it is my duty that I also make it home safe.

But thinking you know, when I woke up, me and that person, both alive, got plans ahead of us, things we want to do today...tomorrow...this summer...and by midday he/she's rendered into non-existence...his/her body an inanimate object. Weird way to think about it. I have a morbid curiosity.

I saw two sheeted dead bodies on last tour of duty. We knew the accident I'm talking about was fatal when we saw the coroner's van go by, following the forensics truck. Both me and my codriver immediately said "Op, this accident is DEFINITELY fatal".

Be careful out there. Unless your hobby in life is shooting up fentanyl laced h****n, I'd argue that driving is probably the most dangerous thing you do on a daily basis, where out of nowhere you can just randomly die.

For that matter, the accident, my codriver said it was an SUV that rolled over, the driver's compartment compacted and inflicted a fatal injury on the driver, if I had to guess, probably blunt force trauma to the head area.

I’m not a trucker and it wasn’t at night, but...

Riding my motorcycle out in the countryside I came across a small tricycle parked right alongside of the road. It was just so far from any houses that I was really kind of freaked out by it. I stopped and looked around, even checking down in the creek that ran alongside the road worried that some little kid could have gone exploring and fallen in. Not finding anything I rode on.

Well, another full mile down the road I came on a lady out walking with two of her kids. The one riding the trike just got tired and she had to start carrying him.

I know this doesn’t sound that strange but just seeing that little trike in the middle of no where kind of freaked me out.

I drove by a marsh every night when I was going home from work. One night I saw a car pulled over with hazards on. Dude was head to toe covered in blood. No crash, no injury, just covered in blood.