Forest rangers share their creepy and unexplainable stories (r/AskReddit - Reddit Scary Stories)

forest rangers what are your unexplainable and downright creepy stories not a ranger but I used to be in a group that's somewhat like the scouts so we spent a lot of time in the woods and some weird crap happened often but most of the time it was easy to explain one thing happened though that to this day scares the living crap out of me I was a leader for the age group eight to ten years old and we were out on a camping trip it was the first year we stayed on that terrain and it was huge normally we tend to explore the majority of a terrain before the kids arrive so we were aware of any possible dangerous spots to avoid this time it was impossible every camp we have what we call a night game it's usually a scary game in which the kids have to complete several tasks while the leaders scare the ever-loving crap out of them obviously we had one - during that camp we messed up his monsters and hid out in the woods close to the checkpoints they had to pass while running in between checkpoints I found an open stretch of forest with little to no foliage so it was ideal for chasing after them there was no real room to hide besides behind trees so I couldn't use my flashlight where they'd be able to see me four miles away it was dark like the unsettling kind of dark that plays tricks on your eyes and you start imagining things that aren't real during my stay there I saw shadow that was around my size running past me a few times I couldn't see it very well so I just assumed I was imagining things because nothing was there when I turned my flashlight on the game was nearing its end and I saw the shadow again this time I could see it vaguely standing near a tree not too far away from me I thought it was one of the other leaders hiding to scare kids and decided to go over there as it was about time to go back I aimed my flashlight towards the tree and while getting closer I noticed that there was indeed someone standing there dressed in what looked like a torn burlap sack and had their head covered with a few white plastic bags that look like they were tied together I started to feel pure dread something felt really off I asked if everything was okay but they didn't respond the only thing I heard was this weird sound that sounded like someone knocking on wood nevertheless I went a bit closer and one was about ten meters away from this person the knocking sound turned out to be that person smacking his head repeatedly into the tree and I noticed he looked like a male he was barefoot and his arms and legs were covered with crusted mud his hands were in a weird cramped position I was convinced this was just one of the other leaders pulling a prank so I told them to knock it off he slowly turned his head and started walking towards me something inside me just told me to run it didn't matter if it was a just a stupid prank and I ran away scared for nothing if this wasn't a prank it felt like I was in serious danger so I ran as fast as I could I heard him running after me but I didn't want to turn around to look as I'd probably run into a tree I arrived back at the campsite and every single person that could be dressed like that was already there they couldn't have gotten there before me and if they did they sure as hell didn't have the time to change into their regular clothes still I told them and that they gave me a good scare with that they just looked weird at me thinking I was trying to scare them and we left it at that next day I wanted to go check it out who knows maybe some weirdo ate the wrong mushroom and might be out there dying from hypothermia I took someone else with me just in case and there was nothing but endless trees we arrived at the tree where I saw the person banging his head and there was a dead skinned decomposing rabbit nailed to the tree we called the cops they looked around quickly and brushed it off as just a prank from another scouting group or some kids from the nearby town and left it at that we didn't notice anything weird after that so it probably was a dumb prank but seriously some people have a effed up sense of humor that makes me sick to my stomach I couldn't imagine seeing something so horrifying like that in the dark stuff like this really makes me wonder what's hidden in the wilderness it also makes me want to never find out but out of curiosity what camp or park were you at nope lake in F this county I have a friend who is a Trail Ranger basically a ranger who can't get you in trouble he told me about this time he was gathering illegally placed wildlife cameras and knocking down hunting stands feeders and blinds with another actual Ranger the other Ranger wasn't feeling well so he said he was going to head back as it's a one-hour ATV ride friend finished up the last one when he heard voices keep in mind he's far off the beaten path he called out and no one replied as it was getting dark he started to head back and found that his ATV wouldn't start he then noticed that the battery was not connected anymore he reconnected it and started to drive but it wasn't going fast at all less than a half mile later the whole thing died he radioed back basically saying hey guys I need someone to come pick me up they told him they would but it would be an hour he asked if the other guy got back and they said no he settled down and started a small fire but before long he heard voices again it's dark he's not happy the voices sound like an argument now someone was angry and yelling at someone else who sounded more scared he called out and asked if anyone needed help the voices didn't seem to care he guessed they had to be less than a thousand feet away he radioed again and they said they were having trouble finding what path he might be on and haven't left yet he asked them just to get the other ranger to tell them about where they are because he left with the iPad that had the map they said he still isn't back about three more minutes go by and he hears the voices start up again he decides to walk to them hoping maybe they can stop being drunk a-holes and maybe have a map he walked in their direction but the voices seemed to be getting further as he got closer finally after 20 minutes he gave up and walked back he got a radio call and they said the other guy was found passed out covered in vomit and was being taken to the hospital but he crossed off everywhere they found a stand so they have a general idea where he is then the radio died then the voices came back bored out of his mind he decided to listen to what they were arguing about picking up things like well it wasn't yours to take I don't freaking care you knew better and so on his guess was two hunters arguing over a kill then he heard the one shout something intelligible then silence then bang a gunshot he doused his fire and hid after that he heard nothing just his breathing for the next half hour until he saw a TV lights he told the guy picking him up everything and they called back they had people looking for three hours and found nothing they came back the next day with police and dogs after about an hour a shallow grave was found and in it was a long dead man who had clearly been shot in the face thing was it was a skeleton who was there for years so either the argument he heard just ended with a bang and both parties went home last night or he heard the murder of someone from years ago I have so many of these but I'll share my favorite I have been a ranger in the USFS for almost 15 years but this takes place about three years after I joined we were getting calls about a lone wolf with a collar on hanging around campsites weird since wolves aren't known to be in the area but when you work in the field long enough you start to realize anything is possible no calls had mentioned violent behavior from the animal thank God I departed from the station around noon to check out the places that it had been sighted wandered around for about three hours no further calls during that time until I took a break for water sat down had a snack drank some water and was getting ready to go again when the thing was about 20 feet out trotting near the tree line it seemed friendly and had the collar so I whistled to it and he came over to me getting a closer look I could see it wasn't a wolf it was huge but it was dark and didn't have the right body structure though I could see why it would be confusing from a distance i radioed in and reported that I had the dog with me but as soon as I said I'd bring it in the dog effing took off like he was playing to see how far he could get me to chase him typical dog behavior I went after it and I swear it was a game of chase for at least 5 minutes as we steadily ran through the forest please don't go running through woods unless you know the area like the back of your head and the dog finally slowed down near a rock bed slash Creek area and started pacing around a spot I drew closer and didn't see anything off at first then I noticed it the overgrowth had almost disguised what appeared to be bones I called it in immediately and another team was sent to recover the remains when I went to retrieve the dog he was just gone but honestly it wasn't a priority at that point he was friendly enough and I figured we'd catch up with him later the bones were identified as a teenage males denied by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head he'd been reported missing in the area long before I became a ranger and there had been pretty much no hope of finding him I spoke to his mom on the phone she called to thank me personally and she asked how I'd found her son I mentioned the black dog then thought I'd said something wrong since there was a pause on her side of the line after I gave a couple details about the dog she quietly explained that her son who struggled with making connections had sunken into a deep depression after the death of his best friend the very dog that had led me to him I think I spent the rest of the day stunned I continue to be in disbelief in a way but I know what happened one of my best buds from college was a geologist major that ended up becoming a ranger in the southeast us haven't spoken in years as is the case with aged but I remember about eight to nine years back he was telling me about an old married couple that he had recently helped out he had seen them come to the park several days in a row and found out they were visiting from out west and they had gotten engaged there decades prior they had been searching for a spot they'd taken picks up where he popped the question but were having trouble after looking at the pics and figuring out roughly where they were trying to get to he escorted them in his vehicle then hiked with them to where he thought it would be they found it and he left them there and went back to his station at the entrance he said he got a weird feeling once he got back and felt like he needed to wait to see them whenever they left well once it came time to lock up at night he still hadn't seen them leave so he reported it left his assistant to wait at the shack at the entrance and went back to where he left them he found both of them lying down spooning along the bank of the river neither were alive he called the cops went through the nine yards and went home the police were able to disclose to him their identities but weren't sure anything else initially later he learned that the wife was terminally ill with cancer and they had both committed suicide by ingesting some sort of chemical / pill combination medley they just chose to do it where they had gotten engaged at my bud wasn't torn up about it he was obviously sad for about them dying but said that he thought they hadn't asked for help earlier because they didn't want anyone to think they helped kill them not a ranger but I lived on the outskirts of a national park in a cabin it was a four mile drive from the main road just to get to the property and we had no plumbing or power this property was right next to where the park started to call it the middle of nowhere as an understatement my roommate at the time was interning with the Park Service but he is a city kid every evening at the dead of night I had been hearing noises in the woods what I thought was someone walking but then they just stopped in particularly overgrown areas of the jungle so your mind starts to doubt itself is it a pig a cat is it just the wind the cabin didn't have a locking door and the owners didn't want me to install one so I began sleeping in my car now this is a huge property and I'd park my car over an acre away from the cabin and where I was hearing something I started hearing those footsteps again I moved out my roommate who thought I was bonkers stayed and still slept there without a locking door he got robbed not once but twice after I moved out so he finally put up motion-triggered cameras there was a man with a long rifle who'd hike up to the property set up in the bushes and watch us I'm a ranger non peace officer and work at a pretty remote desert park this happened before I got there but the other Rangers I work with were there they went to do a patrol during summer our offseason at one of our seldom used campgrounds on a patrol our maintenance ranger found a burnt-out car in one of the sites the desert is a weird place so he just calls the sheriff and waits sheriff arrives and it turns out there's a body in the driver's seat with no arms and no legs just a torso and head burnt sheriff's just marked it as a suicide and removed the vehicle we are close to Mexico and get a lot of legal drug traffic so I guess they don't even bother trying to solve those super sketchy yeah sure suicide what you've never chopped all your limbs off got in your car lit it on fire my mom worked for the forest in the last 70s she worked the radio I think she said she heard her friend died in a forest fire over the radio it isn't super strange but it would be one of the worst things I can think happening to someone my cousin is a park ranger and told me this story there was this woman that had gone missing in the forest no biggie it's a big place he'll just drive around till he finds her four hours later they still didn't find her when he heard a blood-curdling scream this guy had found the missing women with her throat slit so deep my cousin wasn't sure what she had was even classified as a throat he restrained the guy that found her and called the police sadly however there's nothing he or I could find about the subject and my cousin didn't follow up on it after they arrested the guy so for all I know he just found her and had nothing to do with it I told this story on let's not meet but I'm happy to tell it again in 2016 my boyfriend now my husband and I went camping in eastern Pennsylvania the place we decided to stop for the night was primitive camping was free no cell service barely a road etc we did encounter two other people they might not factor into what happened later at all but they were creepy so I'll describe them the first was a woman who had her truck off to the side of the road a little as we drove past she had the hood open and seemed to be waiting for someone to stop and offer to help usually my boyfriend had no problem helping someone but he said his time something about her put him off she didn't really seem like she needed help and usually people who need help look at you hopefully as you approach she looked like she just expected we would stop that's what my boyfriend said anyway I hadn't really noticed anything that's strange about her the next person came when we had chosen a spot and were setting up a fire for hot dogs I had noticed people drive by a few times but my boyfriend pointed out each time was the same car and the man in the car watched us each time he passed my boyfriend was a little uneasy about this but we had driven around for a while before finding a place we liked it had been raining and everything was muddy and we wanted the driest side possible he could have been doing the same thing we briefly thought about moving but the road was muddy too if he wanted to find us all he had to do was follow the tracks there were some other tracks but not many he'd only have to backtrack a little to locate us again he didn't come by another time so we stayed and spent the several remaining hours before dark goofing off no one else drove by whether or not those two had anything else to do with our experience the real fear came later we had gone to sleep in our tent and sometime around 3:00 a.m. we were awoken by this very loud noise I can't describe it very well or even remember exactly what it sounded like but my boyfriend said it reminded him of a chain gun ruing up it was also similar to how it would sound if someone recorded a shovel being dragged over gravel and played it over a loudspeaker is another way he described it he jumped up and looked out the little window but couldn't really see anything the sound repeated itself another few times I was too scared to speak so my boyfriend whispered that it was probably miles off and I should go back to sleep I didn't question this as I figured loud sounds could be easily heard miles off after we left he told me it sounded like it had actually been coming from just down the road but he didn't want to freak me out looking back I probably should have wondered why he would bother to whisper if apparently the sound was far off I was still terrified every little thing I heard outside sounded like someone was walking around the tent we laid there for a while longer when finally my boyfriend told me to get dressed because we were leaving I got alarmed by this and even more alarmed when he unwrapped the machete we had bought just for this trip from its plastic before opening the tent we quickly packed up and loaded the car I looked around for footprints that weren't our own but despite the moon providing plenty of light I couldn't really see I did point out something my boyfriend hadn't noticed though before we got into the car there was a beer can by our dead fire that hasn't been there before we didn't even bring beer while we were driving away my boyfriend explained that he was nervous someone might have been trying to lure us out so he didn't think it was a good idea to run from the tent right away he also half expected to find our gas tank had been siphoned out but that wouldn't have stopped us because we had a hybrid car we joked that that would make a funny hybrid commercial number of brutal murders avoided by driving a hybrid - we only joke because we were about crapping ourselves from fear and adrenaline even then the rest of our trip we only stayed in well populated campsites or got a hotel traditionally not a ranger but my story is the exact reverse of the others here when I was in the scouts or rather the local equivalent legally adult scouts had to do the three feather challenge one day without food one day without speaking and one day and night alone in the woods with only a knife and a tarp unseen by any human after which one has to sneak back to the Scout camp unnoticed by the sentries and report to the camp master it was my third day so I took off walked for miles through the woods and found the most room spot in the wildest most overgrown part of the woods spent a spooky but uneventful night until almost before dawn when I decided to go for a morning swim in the lake right before taking off to go back I stripped nude and went towards the lake but noticed a group of guys fishing so decided to go back suddenly the ground underneath my feet caved in and I found myself submerged up to my armpits and the absolute vilest mass I have ever smelled it was a pit where poacher dumped the guts and leftovers of illegally hunted deer and it fermented for weeks imagine the scene a group of anglers hears some ungodly screaming from the direction of the woods and run there to see if someone needs help what they see is a teenager shaped ghoul covered completely in blood and rotten awful who is crawling out of a bloody hole in the ground while shrieking and weeping then runs at them to get to the lake and wash off lol did they run I'm not sure as my eyes were smeared with rotten guts and blood but I remember they started screaming too and at least one of them fell but backwards in the bushes to their credit when they calmed down they found me by the lake and gave me some soap to help me wash off the stink [Music] [Music]

Channel: ReddiTV

Views: 84,651

Keywords: scary forest stories, creepy woods stories, askreddit creepy, reddit creepy stories, askreddit scary, scary stories, scary story, scary forest, creepy woods, reddit stories scary, askreddit, reddit stories, scariest stories, creepy stories

Id: feMWIyJ-A4s

Length: 20min 31sec (1231 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2019