33 Terrifying Moments That Made Urban Explorers Drop Their Flashlights And Bolt

As 12 year old kids, we were exploring the woods as kids do. The forest parted to an open field and in the distance was an abandoned farm. Naturally we crept inside and in one of the horse stalls were all discarded hypodermic needles and old food. Our parents were quite mad when we told them what we found.

I was exploring with my parents an abandoned soviet small city where the solders and their families stayed. It was getting dark because of the coming storm. I found a basement and thought to just take a fast look into it. It was really dark, but I heard my mom saying on the other side of the basement corridor that she found something and I should see it. I just asked where she was, then I heard my mom again FROM BEHIND telling me to hurry up because the storm is coming and it started to rain. I was 20 yo at the time, but I turned around and got the f**k out of there with tears rolling down my cheeks and shaking like there's no tomorrow. I told my mom amd she said it's another reason to just leave asap.

The Hammock, FL, 1976. I was 14, and had ridden south on A1A with buddies, one of which drove. We stopped at Marineland [locals got in free at that time] and got Cokes from the snack bar at the north end of the park. We motored south and began exploring an old, abandoned two story house. The back right room was full of women's shoes. They all appeared new. Odd. Upon a closer examination, there seemed to be only right hand shoes. The room was 2 feet deep in footwear. If there were left hand shoes in that room, we could not locate them. TBH, we might have missed any left handers, though. We were being goof balls and not really searching all that hard...

We then found a small dark burgundy velvet jewelry box. When we opened it, there was a glass eye in it. That was a bit creepy, but then we saw that the glass eye had a goat pupil in it. We were OUT of there. To this day, I remember the shiver that went down my spine. I mean, who makes a glass eye for a goat? Yikes.

My friends and I were exploring an abandoned military housing complex at night. It was in pretty bad shape but there were lots of interesting things to see. We almost pissed ourselves a couple times because of mannequins behind doors and stuff. There was also a neat art installation with records hanging from the ceiling. Anyway, we climbed up some stairs to the tallest part of the building. We saw some faint light coming from under a door.

Somehow the door had been boobietrapped, and as soon as my friend opened it there was a crash - and a cinderblock on a rope that came swinging out the open door and just missed us. I got a split second look inside where I saw a small fire, a mattress on the ground, and then A MAN moving quickly toward us. He was silhouetted by the light so I couldn't make out what he looked like or what exactly he was holding, but I wasn't about to stick around to find out. I yelled "RUN!" and we bolted out of there as fast as our legs could carry us.

EDIT: I found a couple photos from that night. Here and here. Unfortunately I didn't capture anything too scary for you guys. These are from 2013 and I think the place has since been torn down.

Oh man, my friends and I were exploring the hospital I was born in that had since been abandoned. We explored down to the underground floor strapped with paintball guns for safety. There was all sorts of weird s**t, a room full to the ceiling with toilets, mushrooms growing on the walls, etc. While exploring the underground floor, we found a McDonald's burger still wrapped up. I picked it up... It was warm.

A group of us went into an old abandoned care home. (We got in legally). It was pitch black and I mean the type of darkness where you cannot see you hand in front of your face even when you let your eyes adjust. Fortunately we had a few light sources with us. After walking around and finding copious amounts of evidence that there was squatters staying there (not at the time of our arrival thank god). We found ourselves standing in a room filled with graffiti but not graffiti from a paint can. This was spelled in dried blood and excrement. The stench was horrendous. We got out of there so quick and have never been back since.

Found a dead deer on top of an old grain mill. All of the stairs were removed so people couldn’t climb them. Getting up there is hard enough without carrying a deer carcass on your shoulders. I think about it all the time lol.

Dead crows and satanic symbols on the walls in an abandoned building on an island.

I had crept an abandoned house in Seattle in the 90s. The guy had recently died, but not before hoarding three stories worth of groceries, unopened QVC orders and tons of ephemera. The power and water had been shut off, and he was s******g and pissing in buckets. I opened a couple of these, which would have been revolting on it's own but for some reason, he was putting wigs and toupees in with the waste. There were stacks of wigs that had yet to be put in the buckets. I did get three big bags of Liberty Dimes before I fled in disgust.

Got into an old cement factory with a few friends 15 years ago.

No smart phone, no fancy gadgets. Just a halogen flashlight and each other.

We walked around for hours. The basement was flooded and the water crystal clear, everything heavy still in place. Surreal.

Climbed the stair case at one end of the factory up to a room that had huge motors inside, black filthy windows and a weird smell.

Started to walk into the darkest area of the rooms up there and the smell got worse and worse, found a smashed window pane for some air and light.

Shouted for my mates to come to me so we could share the flashlight and look around properly, 1st mate comes up and freezes...
2nd mate, with the light already on and aimed straight at me, gagging and covering his face.

Pigeons hanging from the walls and carcasses on the floor, a huge symbol scratched and painted on wall.. the windows black probably from the blood of these poor birds.

We noped out of that room pretty quick, f**k knows who had been there messing with birds like that.. turns out the smell was likely death and rotting animals.

Came very close to a black widow spider and noped the f**k out.

We were finally going to explore the second floor. We went up the outside stairs (for context it was an abandoned house not a building) and we were facing the brick sealed entrance which had a whole where a person could fit.

Out of nowhere, my mate's phone started playing loud music and he quickly turned it off. We looked at each other and laughed, not knowing what would follow. The second after we were filled with relief, from the other side of the entrance, we heard a cough and a door creeking. My mate just turned to me and said "Run! " and we did.

Afterwards, we concluded it was probably just a homeless person living there. But, we were never completely sure.

Friends leg fell through the floor.

Edit: since this blew up a bit bit of added context. She was wearing heels and the place was so run down some of the roof was missing.

We got her out she was relatively easy pick up.

It was at an office building at a partially abandoned naval base in California.