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February 10, 2025 • 18 mins
3 HORRIBLE Camping Horror Stories
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:20):
It was our tenth anniversary and we thought camping would
be a great way to celebrate, just the two of
us and our dog. There's a big national park with
camping areas near our home, less than an hour's drive away,
so we decided to head there. The park is a
huge forest filled with tall trees, quiet trails, and clear lakes.

(00:43):
There are small ponds scattered around, and plenty of camping
spots for visitors. It's a favorite place for people to
visit during summer, with families, hikers, and campers filling the area.
But since it was late September and the weather was chilly,
the park felt quieter. We still saw a few people
here and there, but it was peaceful compared to the

(01:06):
busy summer months. There was a long path that went
around the lake near our camp, so we followed it.
The lake was small and there was another camping site
on the other side from our camp. We could see
that site, and from there they could see us too.
The two camp sites were almost across from each other,

(01:28):
but when we walked past the other camp we saw
a man there alone. He was just standing and watching us.
When we said hello, he didn't answer. He looked about
the same age as us, maybe in his late twenties.
I thought he might just be shy or a bit unusual.

(01:49):
He had a small tent set up and some thing
scattered around, so it seemed like he had been there
for a while. After some time, we made it back
to our camp and decided to set up our tent
before it got too dark. Once the tent was ready,
we cooked some food over the fire. Then, out of nowhere,
our dog started barking like crazy. She was tied to

(02:11):
a long wire attached to a tree, and her barking
was loud and sharp. At first, we tried to calm
her down, thinking she might be overreacting, but then we
realized she wasn't just barking for no reason. The sound
of rustling came from the woods near by, and the
feeling of something watching us was hard to ignore. Whatever

(02:33):
it was, it was close, I mean too close by
then it had been dark for hours. I put the
dog on a leah while my husband started looking around
with his bright head lamp. Our dog kept barking NonStop.
We were confused and thought it might be some animal
like a bear or a moose, but we couldn't understand

(02:56):
why it wasn't afraid of us or why it didn't leave.
My husband decided to check the path that led to
the other camp. When he reached the path, which was
less than ten meters from our camp, he saw something
on the ground. I told him to check it out
and I followed with our dog. He stopped, looked at

(03:16):
me and said, it's a person lying on the ground.
My first thought was that they might be hurt or lifeless.
The person was lying face down, not moving at all.
We called out, are you okay? Are you hurt? Suddenly
they stood up without saying a word. It turned out

(03:39):
it was the man from the other camp. He looked
very shaken and was clearly scared of our dog. He
quickly told me not to let her near him, and
I could see he was on edge. At that moment,
I felt a little relieved, thinking it wasn't some huge,
dangerous bear that might attack us, But soon I realized

(04:00):
that this man might have been even more frightening than
any bear. After he stood up, he walked right over
to our camp fire, sat down without saying anything, and
just stared at the flames. The tension in the air
grew thick. My husband, still trying to understand what was
going on. Asked him several times why he was walking

(04:22):
alone in the dark forest without any light. He didn't
answer us. We tried to lighten the mood by laughing
a little and telling him how we thought he was
a bear or something, but he didn't even smile. He
just stared at the fire, looking annoyed. We noticed his
right leg was soaking wet, probably from stepping off the

(04:43):
path and getting it in the lake while walking to
our camp. He stayed with us for about thirty minutes,
hardly saying anything. It was clear he was keeping an
eye on our dog, looking around to see where she
was all the time. I also saw a knife hanging
from his belt. I figured it wasn't that strange since
he was out in the woods, but it still made

(05:05):
me uneasy. Every few minutes he would quietly put his
hand in his pocket, just enough to peek at whatever
was inside. It reminded me of when someone checks the
time on their phone without taking it out of their pocket,
but it wasn't a phone he had there. Then, finally,
after what felt like forever, he stood up again, mumbled

(05:27):
something about going back to his own camp, and turned
to leave without another word. He never explained why he
came to our camp or why he was following us
in the dark. I turned to my husband and said,
there was no way I was going to sleep in
that tent. It felt like the biggest no ever. My
husband agreed with me. He said the man might come

(05:50):
back while we were sleeping. I just wanted to get
out of there as fast as possible, so my husband
started packing up our things. Thankfully our car was close by.
I stayed near the camp guarding it, shining the light
around to see if the man was coming back. Just
as we were almost done getting everything into the car,

(06:13):
I saw a quick flash of light on the path
between his camp and ours. It was him. He was
coming back. Maybe he thought we had gone to sleep
because he couldn't see our campfire anymore. My stomach dropped,
and without saying a word, we quickly jumped into the car.
I looked behind us as we drove off, making sure

(06:35):
he wasn't following. We left as fast as we could.
I'm not sure if we overreacted, but I had such
a bad feeling about him. Who would walk through the dark,
wet forest alone just to watch strangers? What would he
have done. If our dog hadn't heard him, what were

(06:55):
his intentions. Maybe he planned to hurt us while we
were sleeping. I don't know, and I didn't want to
stay there to find out. I'm just glad we had
our dog with us. She might have saved our lives.
I think people are the scariest thing you can find
at night when you're camping. This happened to me a

(07:27):
while back when I went on another solo camping trip.
I enjoy camping by myself because being in the middle
of the wilderness feels peaceful and clears my mind. It's
always been a way for me to relax. I picked
a trail, packed my camping gear, brought some snacks, and

(07:47):
after double checking everything, I loaded it all into my
truck and set off. I find a nice open clearing
that looks perfect for camping and decide to set up there.
The spot is surrounded by tall trees with soft grass
covering the ground. I'm really tired after hiking all day,

(08:08):
but I pushed through and set up my tent at
the southern edge of the clearing, right near the tree line.
Once the tent is ready, I gather some dry wood
and managed to start a small fire. Then I unpacked
some food and roast a few hot dogs over the fire.
Then suddenly I notice a faint noise coming from the distance.

(08:29):
At first, I think it's just part of the usual
forest sounds, as it reminds me of an animal, maybe
a deer, struggling to walk, as if one of its
legs is hurt. I felt sorry for the poor animal,
but it was too far away and it was getting dark,
so I couldn't go check on it or help it.
I decided not to think about it any more and

(08:52):
went back to eating my food. After finishing my meal,
I put out the fire carefully to make sure it
wouldn't start again. Then I crawled into my tent and
got into my sleeping bag. Even though I was tired
and feeling calm, I couldn't fall asleep right away. I
pulled out a book I had packed and started reading

(09:13):
it using the small lamp I brought to light up
the pages. Hours passed and I heard the same sound again,
but this time it was much closer. It was coming
from the opposite side of the clearing. I stopped reading,
put my book down, and listened carefully. The sound was

(09:34):
getting louder, as the animal moved across the clearing toward
my tent. Now it didn't just sound like slow steps.
It was loud, and it seemed like the hoofs were
being slammed into the ground. After each step, there was
a dragging noise, like the deer was pulling something heavy

(09:54):
behind it. The sound got closer and seemed to stop
in what I guessed was the middle of the clearing.
Then everything went completely silent. I couldn't hear breathing or
even the faintest sound from whatever was out there. I
slowly unzipped my tent and peeked outside. The clearing stretched

(10:17):
out before me, quiet and dark, with the trees standing
tall and still around it. My eyes scanned the area,
but there was nothing, just shadows and the faint outline
of trees under the dim starlight. I stared for a while,
trying to make sense of it. Where had the noise

(10:39):
come from, why had it stopped. Feeling uneasy, I zipped
the tent back up and sat inside, straining to hear
anything unusual, but there was nothing. I reminded myself that
the woods often have strange noises that don't mean anything.
Dangerous animals move around branches fall, and sounds carry in

(11:03):
odd ways. I tried to push the thoughts out of
my head and told myself I was safe. I stayed
alert for a while longer, hoping to hear something that
would explain it, but eventually I decided to stop worrying
and focus on resting. I was starting to fall asleep

(11:24):
when I suddenly heard men laughing in the distance to
my right. Then I heard women laughing and the sound
of sticks snapping far off to my left. Now wide awake,
I sat up, wondering if I was really hearing this
or if it was just my mind playing tricks on
me because I was half asleep. But then I heard

(11:46):
more faint laughter, coming from different directions. It sounded like
all kinds of voices, old men, old women, even children.
The laughter sounded strange, and the way it echoed around
the forest made me feel uneasy. I was deep in
the woods, far away from other people, and the noise

(12:07):
earlier had already set off alarms in my head. Something
about the timing the voices and the way the laughter
carried through the trees told me this wasn't just a
family out for a walk. But then I noticed something
even more unsettling. The usual sounds of the night had stopped.
No crickets chirping, no rustling leaves, not even the wind

(12:30):
blowing through the trees. Everything was still, as if the
forest itself was holding its breath. That was when I
decided I'd had enough. I couldn't sit there in the silence,
wondering what was happening. I unzipped the tent, stepped outside,
and fired a shot into the night sky, hoping to
make some noise and break the creepy stillness that surrounded me.

(12:54):
And I noticed the laughter was gone and the usual
forest sounds were back. Art to relax a little, thinking
that the shot had scared whoever it was away. Feeling
tired and still on edge, I sat down and eventually
fell asleep. Then after a while I woke up in
a cold sweat, feeling anxious, and realized it was still

(13:17):
dark outside. As soon as I woke up, I heard
two people whispering not far from my tent. I couldn't
make out much of what they were saying, but I
heard something about being lost. I felt a rush of
unease and shouted, Hey, who's there. The voices immediately stopped.

(13:38):
The silence felt heavy, so I called out again, are
you guys lost? Who's there? Then suddenly, without warning, a
massive burst of fire shot up from the middle of
the clearing like a flame thrower. The flames lit up
the entire area, and for a split second, I saw
several dark shapes of people standing around, frozen in place.

(14:02):
Without looking around, I got up and ran out of
my tent, turning left and heading back toward the trail.
I hiked all the way through the night, only stopping
when the sun started to rise. I kept my head
turned over my shoulder the whole time, but I never
heard anyone following me, and I didn't see anyone or anything. Still,

(14:26):
I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching me.
After that night, I lost all the enjoyment I had
for camping alone. It felt like I left more than
just my gear behind in the woods. I've always been

(14:51):
someone who doesn't believe in strange things, but now I'm
not sure what to think. So my friends and I
went camping to celebrate my birthday, but on the second day,
something really unexpected happened. To explain, we were at the
edge of a field shaped like a peninsula, surrounded by woods,
on three sides. We were cooking over the campfire and

(15:15):
playing pit bull songs loudly since there was a concert
nearby that we couldn't attend. Then we heard what we
later learned was the cry of a baby coyote. We
copied the sound because we thought why not, but then
it started coming closer very quickly, so we used flashlights,
trying to see its eyes in the dark, but saw

(15:37):
nothing even when we pointed the lights straight at the noise.
We aimed the lights at the open field and the
woods around it in case it came out. The sound stopped,
so we thought it got scared and played pit Bull again,
But just five seconds later the sound started again, but
this time from the other side of the field. We

(16:00):
were scared, so we quickly got in the car and
drove to my house, which was only half a mile away.
We wanted to grab some things for protection, like a
baseball bat, because we thought it might just be a
raccoon or a lone coyote, but then we figured those
animals aren't too hard to handle if they got too close.

(16:22):
While we were at the house, one of my friends,
who was very spiritual, said they had a bad feeling
about the situation, so we also grabbed a sage stick
a blessed rosary, hoping it would help in case something
unusual was going on. As we got back to the field,
my few spiritual friends and even me felt very off

(16:43):
and I was extremely nauseous, so as we parked my car,
we said to secure food and grab essentials in order
to leave. We secured most of the food and stayed
in groups in case it was a predatory animal. The
noise started circling again, and as we got the last
of the essentials from the campsite and began to get

(17:04):
back in the car, it started up again directly behind
the tent. The last person finally got in the car,
and just as we were about to leave, another friend
and I both saw something moving behind the tent. It
looked like a misty, shadowy shape. It was walking on
two legs, and at first I thought I was just

(17:24):
seeing smoke or something strange in the air, but when
we got back to my house, my other friend who
had also seen it, told me they saw the exact
same thing. I really didn't want to stick around any longer,
so as soon as everyone was safely in the car,
I floorated out of the field, driving as fast as
I could to get away from there. As soon as

(17:46):
we pulled into my driveway, the noise started again, but
this time it was on the other side of my house,
far from the field. We were so scared we just
left half of our things in the car are My
three spiritual friends used sage to cleanse the house, making
sure to do all the windows and doors especially. My

(18:10):
cat wouldn't come inside until we finished using the sage.
Then it just stood by the door staring at it.
Now it's the next day and we're all really terrified.
A deer keeps standing across the road staring into my windows.
We went back to take down the campsite, and none
of the food had been touched, so it couldn't have

(18:33):
been a raccoon or coyotes. I've never been very spiritual before,
but if this is something supernatural or a dangerous being,
I want to protect myself and my family.
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