When I was about 12, my mom and I were traveling cross-country to move. We were staying the night in Missouri, at a typical roadside hotel next to a chain diner, so we went in for dinner. It was packed, despite us being one of only a couple guests at the hotel, so we sat up at the bar. We noticed something weird after a few seconds – every single person had a glass of milk in front of them. Even the dudes around the bar. Nothing else, just a tall glass of milk. Someone opened the fridge under the center bar and we saw just gallons of milk. The bartender took our dinner orders and bought each of us a glass of milk without us asking for anything to drink. It was so weird. My mom told me not to drink it.
On our way back to our room my mom stopped at the front desk and asked the woman working there, half-jokingly and half-concerned, why everyone drinks so much milk in this town. The woman said she had no idea what she was talking about and we just moved on. When we were putting our leftovers in the mini fridge up in our room, there were like ten mini-cartons of milk. No brand, just the word MILK in black lettering.
It was a weird place and I’ve never been able to figure it out.
Gas Stations Are A Hotbed For Paranormal Activity
A few years ago, I was driving home from Florida to Pennsylvania with three of my friends. It was late, probably sometime between 1-3am, and we were somewhere in North Carolina. We needed gas soon, so we agreed to take the next exit off the highway that had a gas station.
The second I took the exit, it was pitch black. There were no streetlights along the exit ramp or on the roads up ahead, the only lights in the area came from my headlights and the lights from 95 behind us. The sheer darkness was enough to creep me out (especially because my vision isn’t the best to begin with but really sucks when it’s dark) but we really needed gas so we pressed on.
While driving to the gas station, the only building we saw was a massive, old looking church. we drove by a sign informing us that we were in a town, but there were no businesses or houses other than the church.
When we finally got to the gas station we saw an assortment of giant farm animal statues outside the building, standing tall and barely illuminated. They weren’t fenced off, and there were no signs explaining why they were there, so if it‘s considered an attraction it’s a confusing one at best.
However, the weirdest thing happened inside the gas station. With me on this trip was one other girl and two guys. We had all been friends for years and our dynamic includes making fun of each other a lot, but never deliberately messing with each other’s heads. At this point in our trip, we were all tired and eager to get home. The gas station itself was huge on the inside, filled to the brim with shelves, all of which were jam packed with an assortment of junk food and junk items. In hindsight, this seems weird given how empty the town was, but at the time we were all distracted by just how much stuff this gas station held. The other girl and I went to the restroom while the two guys paid for gas. The restroom was hard to get to as there were boxes piled just outside the door, and the sign just had a piece of paper with “women” scrawled across it in green highlighter.
Upon leaving the restroom, we saw one of our friends entering the men’s restroom (also marked by a piece of paper with “men” written in highlighter). He gave us a weird look as he entered, but we shrugged it off and walked towards our other friend who we could see standing at a shelf a bit away. He was facing away from us, and as we approached I started to get a bad feeling in my stomach. As we got closer, he turned and gave us the most sinister look I’ve ever seen. Alarm bells are going off in my head at this point and my female friend and I proceed to the car, unsure of what to make of the interaction we just had. The second we stepped outside and looked towards the gas pumps, we saw the same two friends we had just seen standing behind us. The one who was entering the bathroom was leaning casually against the car, while the one who gave us a sinister look was finishing up pumping gas.
My female friend and I were dumbfounded and asked them how they were standing in front of us when they were both just behind us a few seconds ago, and they looked at us like we had multiple heads. After paying for gas the two immediately went back out to the car, as the gas station gave off too weird of a vibe to wait in there for us. Sufficiently creeped out, we piled back in the car and noped out of there.
I’m not sure why we saw two of my friends doppelgängers in a gas station, or why the doppelgängers seemed to be in such a bad mood, and I’m really not sure why the gas station had a collection of farm animal statues outside of it. I’m pretty content never going there again though, that place definitely should not exist.
I Did Promise A Milkshake
So back when I was younger I was kind of a terrible kid. To deal with being just totally unmanageable as well as being a child of two narcissists the decision was made that I would work on a huge ranch deep in the countryside of Arizona (should be noted I was a pretty accomplished equestrian rider at this time so ranching wasn’t really out of the realm of what I could do) . On cattle drives it was not unusual to stumble upon houses, encampments and even whole towns in also in the middle of nowhere. These all had their own movie like situations that came out of them but one, in particular, I will NEVER forget.
Here we are on another cattle drive this time pretty far into it, we have been out in the desert if I remember correctly easily three or more weeks when we stumble upon this town in the middle of a canyon that is picture perfect in addition low and behold there is a diner. Like an old totally chromed out east coast diner. We have not eaten anything really of substance for a while and the head wrangler promised me a milkshake for my birthday. I was beyond stoked if not a little weirded out but honestly, after you spend enough time in the wilderness of the US, nothing really surprises you.
So we leave behind some of our mates to watch the cattle who are resting in the shade after getting over this rocky wash and hike into the canyon to go to the diner. The second we set foot in the diner the head guy, this older cowboy who is the head of all of us grabs my arm. This place is packed and everyone is wearing odd clothing like stuff from maybe the 40s or 50s? My head wrangler (T) is a really tough guy who from ranching for his entire life had definitely seen some weird stuff. T grabs my arm (as I am just focused on milkshake and about to go grab a booth) when I realize everyone is just staring at us and there is a really strange feeling in the air. Now we were used to getting looks all the time from being smelly and dirty but these people had these almost fear and/or shock . T and the two others with us slowly back out of the diner dragging me in tow and we immediately go back to our site and leave without a word. I was so confused I just went along with all of it.
To this day I have no idea what that place was or if we stumbled through a time warp or what but my wrangler told me later that night when we were away from them that he felt like we had stepped back in time. Like truly stepped back in time and that place was stuck in some sort of loop and if we stayed we would get stuck too. T never really spoke a lot, nor was he to be messed with, he also had a mean sweet tooth despite having almost no teeth so for him to have reacted that way really shook me.
I have no idea if what he told me is true but I will never forget the look of all those people in that immaculate diner.
Even Africa Knows How To Get Spooky!
Back in the day my dad had a company that rented out 4×4 vehicles to foreigners who wanted to explore rural Africa. These cars were kitted out for off roading and rarely broke down. But this time one did. My dad had to retrieve the vehicle as he’s done a few times before, and since we lived in the neighboring country It wasn’t more than a 20 hour drive (We live in Cape Town, South Africa and the vehicle broke down in Namibia.)
To my delight my dad was setting off to retrieve this 4×4 in the upcoming school holiday and asked me to join him. I should add that I was about 16 at the time and ghost stories never really got to me. So we set off on our long journey and the trip goes smoothly as planned. We get to the collection point, hook up the broken down 4×4 to ours and off we go, no problems at all… Until it turned dark. Now I know Namibia quite well, it has some well known ghost stories, ghost towns and other eerie occurrences have been reported, but in my mind that was just fantasy.
Fast forward to about 2:30 am (remember kids, nothing good ever happens after 2am) and my dad wakes me up with noticeable uneasiness in his voice. He asked me to look in the rear view mirror and tell me what I see. I looked in the mirror and noticed two dim headlights almost on our rear bumper that appear to be bouncing around a bit. My dad told me he wanted to make sure I see it too and it isn’t just his tired eyes playing tricks on him. I looked around and the area we were in was terrifying to say the least. We were surrounded by hills, but because of the lack of light it was just pure blackness against the night sky, covered in leafless trees with pointy sharp branches all over.
I ask my dad where we were and he simply said that he doesn’t know, he’s just been following the GPS and asked me to look if there were any towns near. There wasn’t, not for more than 300 kilometers. He pointed back at the mirror and said “look”. He then proceeded to shift over the center of the road to the other lane and the lights followed suit without hesitation, as if they were tied to us. I asked my dad what it was and he said that he thinks its a truck. Now that in itself is not totally uncommon on these long cross country roads but something about this just seemed off.
I mentioned to my dad that the truck may simply want to pass us, we are pulling quite a bit of weight so we are way under the speed limit at this point and he could be impatient. Dad decides to slow down to 60km/h and moves into the yellow line in an attempt to get this truck to pass. Nope, truck slows down too. Okay lets take it down a notch, dad slows down to 40km/h. Nope same result. We had to drop down to a speed of 20km/h for this truck to start overtaking us. And then it did…
We heard a groan and the grinding of gears and what seemed like an eternity till this truck started pulling up next to us. Now keep in mind these are quite windy roads with hills, so overtaking isn’t recommended, especially not that slow, but this truck took its sweet time until it was right next to us. It was one of those car hauling trucks that has two levels that it can carry cars on. It had chains all over the sides that were slowly clinging and clanging through the night. The back of the truck where the cars get loaded appeared bent out of shape and the metal was rusted and held together by pieces of wood and loose torn pieces of fabric were blowing in the wind. I was terrified. I shifted my attention to the cabin, black as the sky that night and no driver in sight. I’m not making this up, we saw nobody.
The truck pulled in front of us with a groan and it didn’t seem like it could speed up anymore. Now we were behind this terrifying mess of a vehicle and my dad started getting impatient, we started overtaking the truck and checked again for life inside the cabin as we passed. Nothing. Once we were in front of the truck I noticed the headlights getting ever dimmer and dimmer, and when we picked up speed so did it. The lights kept dimming until there was but a spark left. This is where I got convinced something supernatural was going on. We were driving on a hillside and a bend was coming up, not a tight one, but if missed one would go straight off the road and down the hill as there were no barriers. We go around the bend slowly, considering our heavy load and the truck just goes straight without hesitation. We both saw it drive straight off the road and down the hill where at the bottom it finally got to a stop and all the lights died.
We stopped at a rest stop for the night and head back there that morning to have a look if anyone was hurt or if the truck was there. It wasn’t and there were no tracks or broken bushes where we saw it go off the road.
This Is Why We Need Better Electric Cars
I was driving from Dallas to Tuscaloosa. Left at midnight and drove straight through the night with two friends passed out sleeping. It was probably 4am and I had a 1/4 tank of gas which translates to about 100 miles. I see that the nearest town is about 90 miles so I’m pretty worried about making it.
Before I hit that town, I ran into a tiny town that wasn’t on the map. A few houses, a gas station, a convenient store, and that was about it.
I walk into the gas station and hand the guy a 50$ so I can fill up. He was a really tall skinny guy. Like skin wrapped around bones level skinny. Probably 6’5 at least. And he just had this eerie look about him.
He looks at me, leans over the counter, scans the outside, and looks back at me. He hands me my 50$ back and a hat and says “Look, you look like a nice young fella. You don’t want to be out here at this time of night looking like that. Put the hat on, get to your car quickly, and get gas at the next town.”
I was super confused and just said “I don’t have enough gas to get there, that’s why I’m here. I didn’t even know this place existed.” He responds “It doesn’t. Here, there’s 2 gallons left in this can. Just drive another 15-20 miles out and use those two gallons. But please, you need to move now.”
At that point, I stopped questioning him and left. On my return trip, it was day time. So I wanted to stop back in and return the can with 2 gallons in it. But wouldn’t you know? Couldn’t find the little town again. It’s like it disappeared over the weekend.
To this day, I refuse to stop in small towns that aren’t on the map. I have no idea what that gas station employee was trying to save me from, but he pushed me out of there with some urgency and even gave me free gas to do so.
This Is How Skynet Gets You Before The Robot Uprising
So, my best friend and I are driving from Texas to Kansas City. We wanted to pick up some tacos for a friend in KC on the way back, so we wanted to find the closest taco shop to KC. Google Maps says there is one on the way, just like two hours away from home! Score, right?
Wrong.
When we get close, it is near 2AM. We have been driving all day. We are tired. Google Maps tells us to get off the highway, so we do. It drives us through a small town, christmas lights and banners hanging, street lights on and everything holiday levels of cheer. Apparently, the place isn’t in the town, which is unfortunate, but hey, fast food tex-mex. We keep driving, the roads get dodgier and dodgier until google maps has us turn down a literal dirt road. Another mile or so in, and Google Maps calmly says
“You have arrived at the destination.”
We are surrounded by trees on all sides. It is pitch black. It is getting foggier by the second. I turn the car around and get out of there.
We can’t cancel the google navigation, but instead of saying rerouting, that cold robot voice just keeps repeating:
Turn back.
Turn back.
Turn back.
I have to figure out how to get back on the highway, and it is made all the harder by the sudden shut down of the town. The lights are gone. The buildings are closed down and run down. Everything that had been alive ten minutes ago was rubble and regret. My friend is losing it, thinking we have entered Silent Hill. I am furiously driving, watching blankets of fog roll in behind us at every intersection. At last, I find the on-ramp and get back on the highway.
Sometimes I want to go looking for that town. Most days, though, I am smarter than that.
Here Come The Men In Black
When I was small I went to check out a local graveyard (it’s not as weird as it sounds, there was Norman art and scattered human bones. These are neat when you’re 10)
Anyway, I’m cycling in there and I see like 4 guys in Ordnance Corps gear. Walking from grave to grave, before I had much chance to investigate, two soldiers pointed their weapons and told me to leave.
So I headed back home and told my mom what I saw. Explosive scares happen every once and a while here in Kerry as they find ammo from the civil war so we (me, mom, dad, brother) decided to go drive down. This is only a few minutes after I was there. We turn into the junction and that’s all I remember.
I wake up in a field next to the graveyard. My head hurt so much. After I realize where I am. I begin yelling out for my family and I hear replies from over by the graveyard. Hopping over the wall, I see my brother lying the wrong way over a bench and my dad coming out from the abandoned church (he says he was sitting against one of the walls). We go over to the car, which is haphazardly in the middle of the car park. And my mom is slumped over the wheel. When we wake her up she jumps back with a panicked look on her face. She yells at us to get into the car and we speed off.
When we get home we start talking about what happened and me, my dad and my brother all remember nothing past the junction. My mom remembers past that the junction. She says she saw “something” there was a bright white flash.
And there was nothing.
It still freaks me out just thinking about it.
The Grove Of Tranquility
I’ve been living out of my car recently. There’s a stretch of road in the southwest that runs along national forests. One night I was looking for a good dark pull off to sleep in. I found a good one, it had trees to pull under so the headlights out on the two-lane wouldn’t be as disturbing, as it has truck traffic.
In the morning I heard a car pull off and watched as it went on past me into the forest on a two track. I hadn’t seen that lane when it was dark, it looked inviting.
I decided to try driving on it myself, it turned out to be a lovely area, and eventually, I found a really nice spot under some trees out in there where it was very quiet and I could see the Milky Way at night, although it was subzero most nights.
I stayed out there for several days, data service was good so I kept applying, and during that time I got an interview invitation, the first in a long time. They called while I was sitting under those trees, the guy who had called later told me that I had sounded very relaxed.
Heartened by that call, I drove out to the highway to get some groceries and water. When I came back up the highway I could not find the original entry point. I found another two-track and eventually got back to the same spot, but that lane had no place to pull off and park.
Months later I took a temporary house about 40 miles from there and sometimes still use that stretch of highway.
I look carefully every time I pass through, sometimes irritating other drivers; have not yet found the original entry. None of the pull offs have a lane at the back or even a break in the fence, and none of the lanes have even a slight wide spot, much less a deep place with trees.
I am not that kind of person at all, which is why I re-examine that stretch every time I pass through, but I’m slowly resigning myself to having spent at least one night in a place that doesn’t currently exist.
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