The casual observer might think truck driving is just like one long road trip. But this job certainly isn’t for everyone! Long hours behind the wheel, traffic jams, bad routes, and poor driving conditions are just a few of the issues truckers face every day.
And sometimes – usually when they’re by themselves, in the middle of nowhere, and on dark and stormy nights – they see something through the windshield that sends shivers down their spines. Truckers and their loved ones recently shared some of these creepy encounters on Reddit.
Here are 12 of the most chilling.
1. A Strange Attempted Break-In
After stopping for the night in a dirt area near eastern Washington, one trucker was happily watching something on his phone when he heard something try to open the driver’s side door.
When he looked through the curtains to see who it was, nobody was there. Then came the next surprise:
“After laying back down and convincing myself that something blew against the truck…I hear what sounds like someone trying to pry open the vents on the sleeper.” His door handles were clicking, and fingers were tapping on his windows and chassis.
It only stopped after another truck drove past. “In the morning, I couldn’t find any footprints or damage to my truck, but on every window were tiny human-looking handprints, like a toddler had licked their hand and stuck it to my window over and over.”
Reddit user: ICollectTheDead
2. The Radio Interruption
Another trucker wasn’t disturbed by something he saw, but something he heard. He was “Driving through an abandoned section of Baltimore at 3 in the morning” when his “CB radio turned itself on and crackled for a bit.” Then came the weirdest part:
“Out of nowhere, some voice over the radio said in a deep southern drawl, ‘I ain’t got no panties on.’” Apparently, he could see for miles along the interstate, and he was the only one on the road.
Reddit user: THREEkoalas
3. The Woman in the Car
One Reddit user described her truck-driving dad’s experience on a route from Edinburgh to London. Driving down the highway, he looked out of his window to the right and “saw a woman with a ‘Miss Trunchbull bun’ (as he describes it) staring at him with a terrified expression from a car next to him.”
It got creepier, too. “About half an hour later, a different car with a different driver pulls alongside my dad, with the same woman in the passenger seat, with the same expression on her face.”
Then, hours later, “Yet another car pulls alongside him with the same woman, same Miss Trunchbull hair, same terrified expression, except this time she appears to be SCREAMING…through the window.” He eventually called the police, who told him they’d received three other calls about that same woman.
4. The Lucky Escape
Somebody else who posted on Reddit isn’t a trucker but has a story that involves one. Apparently, in circa 2005, his college friend from Miami was driving through the Everglades to Naples with his girlfriend. It was night-time, and they were following a big 18-wheeler.
When she fell asleep, he put the radio on. When he eventually found a decent station, the DJ said something about the stars being extra bright that night. They recommended anyone driving through should pull over and look. For some reason, he decided to take the advice.
“They stopped and just took in the stars for 5-10 minutes. He said it was the most amazing sky he’s ever seen.” It turns out it might have saved their life. When they were done, they drove a few minutes down the road and saw that “The truck they were following had jackknifed and took out a handful of vehicles that were following.” There were multiple fatalities.
Reddit user: codeman12345
5. The Rude Awakening
This story isn’t creepy, but it definitely provides an insight into the harsher realities of what some truck drivers encounter on the road.
“A good buddy of mine is a long-haul trucker for my company. A few months ago, he woke up in a parking lot surrounded by police. Some dude had gotten shot and dumped 15 feet from his truck.”
Reddit user: Catlenfell
6. The Unwanted Visitor
Somewhere between Memphis and Nashville, one trucker had to pull over to fix the tarp on the back of his flatbed. As he did, he noticed a strange man walking toward him.
“The first thing I notice is his hair. It’s…like he tried to cut his own hair and had a seizure in the process. The next thing I noticed were his eyes, which I can only describe as “off”…Clothes were dirty and not well maintained, with dirty white tennis shoes.”
The man implied he wanted a lift. The trucker declined. He asked again. The trucker declined a second time.
Eventually, the guy got the message and walked away…until he changed his mind. He started walking back, looking angry and as if he was talking on the phone to someone. Having finally fixed the tarp, the trucker quickly got back in the cab to drive away. He realizes the man hadn’t been on the phone but talking to his own hand.
“As I pass him, he’s just looking at me, still holding his hand to his face with this dead look on his face, just staring at me. Gave me the creeps. About the time I hit 5th or 6th gear, I look in the mirror, and there’s no one there.”
Reddit user: PenBandit
7. The Featureless Apparition
One man, not a trucker but someone who drove through remote areas in Canada a lot for work, had a strange encounter he still can’t explain.
“I was…driving late at night when I noticed a very large black shape on the road in front of me.” He thought it was a moose, so he hit the brakes.
“Despite being so close and having my headlights shining directly on it, I still couldn’t tell what I was looking at…It was completely featureless. I couldn’t make out any details whatsoever, no shine from its eyes, nothing.” And things got even weirder.
“Then I noticed there were more of them in the ditch on both sides of the road…They didn’t look like physical objects or living things. More like just large patches of absolute darkness. After I got over my shock, dread started to set in, and I drove around the thing on the road and sped off.”
Reddit user: vextrud
8. The Railroad Mysteries
Another Reddit user who works for a railroad that often passes slowly through isolated and wooded tracks had a few stories to share. The one he says he’ll “remember until [he] retires” is this:
“The only other part of my trip where we were required to run at a slow speed, I heard the craziest blood-curdling scream I have ever heard in my entire life.”
A few of his colleagues also talked about “A family walking down the track with no concerns. Constant blowing of the horn, flashing of the lights, etc, just kept walking down the track. Then disappearing. Near Weatherly, PA.”
Reddit user: tylerk135
9. The Horrifying Face
A man who isn’t a trucker but drives every day and/or night for work was in rural Mississippi when the threat of a storm convinced him to pull over. It was night, it was hailing, and he’d already worked 14 hours.
There had been tornado warnings that day, and the weather conditions made him think one was on its way. As a result, he wanted to see if anything tornado-looking was approaching his vehicle.
“I rolled the passenger window down and shined a bright flashlight off into the night. Nothing there. Turn to the driver’s, side and this guy has his face pushed against the glass. Grinning from ear to ear. I screamed, and he was gone. I slammed the truck in drive and took off.”
10. The Big Foot Encounter
Someone was working the night shift at a gas station when a truck driver walked in looking “clearly shaken.” He assumed the trucker had hit someone. But no – they’d seen something.
“His face is completely white, and he is obviously upset…He looks at me for a second and is like, “I’m not crazy.” Now I’m thinking, great, I’m here all alone, and this guy is losing it.”
He went on: “I just saw something huge on the side of the road…[It was] bigger than a bear on its back legs…It picked up a dead buck on the side of the road and carried it over its shoulder into the woods.” That’s when a local approached the counter, saying, “That’s the big foot that lives near the county line.”
Reddit user: The_Turtle_Moves_13
11. The Near Miss
One Redditor had a story about their uncle, who drove big trucks. Apparently, it was common for his uncle to come across trash in the road when driving through the middle of nowhere.
Usually, because of the size of his truck, he’d just drive straight through it without too much thought. Yet there was one particular occasion when he was glad he didn’t…
“One day, he was coming up on a cardboard box and just had the urge to swerve and miss [it]. He misses it and passes by with no incident, looks in his rearview to look at the box, and out pops a kindergarten-age little kid that just heads back to their house as if nothing happened.”
Reddit user: drcowart
12. The Shadow in the Night
One truck driver was driving at night along a slow stretch in a national park when he had a sense of something outside. “Every so often I think I see something out the window and beside me. Just a glimpse of movement. When I Iook, though, I don’t catch it.”
But then he did. “Finally, on about the third time, I whip my head around, and this time I recognize it’s a huge black wolf following alongside my truck just off the highway. I only saw it for a few seconds before I had to focus back on the road, but it was absolutely lovely yet unsettling.”
Reddit user: Skilganon
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Source: Reddit.
