Truck drivers deal with long hours, late nights, and deserted roads on a regular basis, and that's a recipe for some strange happenings. Whether it's a figment of their imagination or a creepy encounter, truck drivers experience their fair share of unsettling situations. These truck drivers shared the weirdest thing they've experienced in the middle of nowhere. Content has been edited for clarity.
Wrong Truck!
“I think the best ‘creepy’ thing that ever happened to me was I was heading from Tucson, AZ up into Salt Lake City, UT. Well this was a few years ago and the main highway had been taken out in a flash flood and was under construction so I had to take a weird detour through the mountains in lower Utah.
Well it was getting late and I was getting tired so I pulled off onto the shoulder and went to sleep in my bunk. Now this was in the middle of nowhere, the closest town was like 40 miles away, so it is completely pitch black outside once I turned the lights off. Around 4am I wake up because I’m hearing something messing with my truck, like playing with the air and power cables between my cab and the trailer, which is literally 6 inches from where my head is at but on the outside of the cab. Then I feel something climb onto the landing that’s on the back of my truck and it shakes my whole truck, so I’m guessing something around 200-300 pounds was climbing around back there, I’m thinking like a mountain lion or a bear. At this point I’m wide awake and I want to get this thing away from me, so I slam my hand into my cab wall trying to scare what ever is out there, hard enough to really make it loud.
I then hear someone, a male, scream bloody murder and I hear them fall off the back of my truck. I then hear about 15 other people all around my truck yelling. I climb up front, turn on my lights and illuminate a squad of Army Reserves doing their midnight ruck march and capture drills.
Turns out these guys were supposed to go find an ‘abandoned’ truck and ‘secure’ it for their midnight drills. That truck was 3 miles back down the road. They were not expecting me to be sleeping there, and thought I was part of the drill. I’m ex-military so after explaining I was not part of their test and legit was just there out of coincidence we laughed it off. They had to radio to their C.O. and tell him I was there and not have the other squads bother me.”
Get Out Of My Way
“I used to deliver hotshot freight across the great plains/Minnesota area. One night around 2am I was hauling across North Dakota trying to reach Montana by morning. I was delivering a particularly valuable tractor part that a farm desperately needed for the following day. I began to notice some highway hypnosis sneaking up on me, but it didn’t really bother me because I’d been through it hundreds of times before. Anyone who has driven across North Dakota knows that it is incredibly flat. Like, really flat. There also tends to be very straight and long roads. It’s somewhat easy to see things on the road that are far away, even at night.
I noticed something long on the road, spanning my entire lane, approximately half a mile in front of me. I slowed down a little and prepared to move into the opposite lane, thinking it was some re-tread off a blown tire. As I got closer I noticed it was two people, laying head to toe across the entire lane. I swerved into the other lane, successfully avoiding them and came to an almost complete stop. But they didn’t move. Not an inch.
I was just about to back up and check on them when I remembered a story that an old greybeard colleague of mine told me. He told me that in certain remote areas, people will lie down in the middle of the road and wait for a car or truck to stop and see what’s going on. At that point, the road-layers along with whoever else is hiding in the nearby bushes will beat up the driver and steal his vehicle, leaving him in the middle of nowhere.
I decided not to back up, and when the two people in the road saw me put my truck back in gear and drive away, they both got up and walked toward the shoulder. I called the police and explained what happened, but we were so far away from civilization that I doubt anything came of it.”
Angry Birds
“I pull into a Perdue plant, drop my empty trailer and go park where they allow bobtails to sit, right next to a nice little pond. My pick up was in 12 hours so I lay down in the bunk to get some rest.
At about 3am I hear something tapping on my passenger side door. I get up, look out the window expecting to see someone, maybe a driver asking for a lumper check but no one’s there.
So maybe I’m hearing things. So I go back to lay down. As soon as my head hits the pillow I hear the tapping again except this time it’s on my driver side.
Same thing as before, I jump up and look out my window but nothing’s there. I double lock my doors just in case and open my side hatches so I can hear what’s going on outside.
After about 15 minutes, I hear a very light splat splat splat going along the driver side of the truck.
I slowly get, up planning to look out my window at the exact moment whoever it is knocks on my door. And then I hear a thud coming from the roof of the cab.
I stop, grab my tire thumper off its hook, and ready myself for whatever is going on.
Then a huge goose falls off the top of the truck and lands on my hood. It stands up, waddles back and forth and looks at me.
As we make eye contact the tapping at my door starts again. I say forget it and throw open the driver side door and there’s another freaking goose waddling away with all the speed it can manage honking like a 5 year old who just found the horn on his new bike.
The pond I parked next too had a ton of them just hanging around. Needless to say It was hard to sleep that night because every couple minutes the geese would peck at my door or land on the cab and waddle around.”
A Spooky Figure
“I parked off an exit ramp at about 3am during my 10 hour trip. The moon was full and high, and I spotted an unmistakably human figure in a nearby cut corn field. A little spooky but I just wrote it off as an old timer putting up a scarecrow for the grandkids.
I started watching a few YouTube videos before turning in and out of the corner of my vision I thought I saw movement. I shut my lights off to get a good look, and saw the figure but nothing else. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like maybe it was in a different spot. Maybe a little closer even.
I was definitely feeling a bit spooked. The highway was devoid of anyone besides a car passing every ten minutes or so. I didn’t want to, but I had to jump out to pee. I considered a bottle, but I told myself I was being childish. I took a look at the figure and it was right where I figured it should be.
I hop out, walk between my truck and trailer and start going. Every fiber of my being wanted to look. I told myself again I was being foolish, but I couldn’t help it. I looked out…and the field was empty, the figure wasn’t there. My stomach dropped and I jumped back in the truck. I took off down the highway, didn’t care at all about a violation. I stopped 40 minutes up the road at a well lit and very full Loves. I haven’t stopped on a ramp since.”
Overheard On The Radio
“Driving through an abandoned section of Baltimore at 3 in the morning, my CB radio turned itself on and crackled for a bit. Out of nowhere some voice over the radio said in a deep southern drawl, ‘I ain’t got no panties on.’
I could see up and down the interstate for miles and saw not one set of headlights…”
Fire And Rain
“I was driving through rural New Mexico, the Bisti area with the crazy melted rock look. No plants or anything, just rock and sand. It was monsoon time, and it was raining cats and dogs just pouring so hard you could barely see going 20 mph. Thunder and lightning were rocking the truck, sometimes turning into hail and pounding you. Just a nasty storm.
I came around a corner, and the whole country side was legit on fire. Like 20 foot tall flames, hundreds of yards in all directions while pouring rain at dusk. It was just rocks and dirt wildly on fire in the pouring rain.
I just slowly drove on, it was totally freaky and surreal. I honestly thought I may have hallucinated it.
Later I checked the news, apparently a propane truck slid off the road going way too fast and busted open pretty violently and lit on fire. I never saw the truck, it must have been behind something.”
Who Is This Woman?
“My dad drove a truck between Edinburgh and London and tells this story often. He was driving down the motorway, looked to his 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. Before he really knows how to react the car pulls off at the next exit and my dad, although shaken, carries on.
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. My dad thinks ‘forget this’ and plans to pull into the next service station to report it because even if it’s nothing or a misunderstanding, better to be safe than sorry, right? Anyway, the car disappears before he can get any details (plates, etc.) and he thinks there is no point calling the police with no details so he carries on driving.
Literally about 4 hours later, almost in London, 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 at my dad through the window, so my dad pulls over into a lay-by and calls the police. Apparently they had received 3 other calls about the same woman and car in the same area in the last few minutes. It is unfortunately anticlimactic as he never heard anything more about it but he didn’t see her again and although he kept an eye on the news, didn’t see anything about it. Hopefully it’s just a giant coincidence. Who knows.”
Something’s Not Right Here
“Around 2006 or so I was driving flatbed, picked up a load of construction material (drywall, roofing, don’t remember but it was prepackaged in boxes and I remember having to use strap protectors on the load) in rural Tennessee. My memory is foggy now but I want to say it was between Memphis and Nashville but closer to the intersection of the MS, AL, TN state lines.
A tarp was required so I strapped everything down, put the tarp over the load and left the shipper. About 5 miles down the road, in the middle of nowhere woods on a 2-lane road, I notice my tarp flapping in the wind. I found a wide shoulder and pulled over to fix it. I realize that I just did a bad job tarping this load and decide to re-do it on the side of the road. I undo all the bungee straps, drag the tarps off, roll them back up, climb up on the load and start unrolling the tarps again and I see a guy walking down the same side of the road I’m on, coming towards my truck.
I don’t think anything about it other than to keep an eye on him because I’m in the middle of nowhere and continue what I’m doing. About the time I have tarps set in place and am climbing down to start hooking the bungee straps back on, this dude is getting close enough that I’m now paying more attention to him than I am to tarping my load. I grab my winch bar and set it on the trailer where I’m working just in case (it’s an 8 pound solid metal bar about 4 feet long tapered to a blunt point on one and and hollow on the other, used for tightening straps and chains, etc).
The guy gets to me and the first thing I notice is his hair. It’s like a mullet but it’s really patchy. Like he tried to cut his own hair and had a seizure in the process and said forget it, ‘good enough to party.’ The next thing I notice were his eyes, which I can only describe as ‘off.’ Like they were clear, I didn’t think he was messed up or high or anything, but it also gave me the distinct impression that the elevator didn’t go all the way up. His clothes were dirty and not well maintained, with dirty white tennis shoes, because I remember he didn’t have laces on one shoe and the tongue was noticeably out of place.
He stops by me, waits until I acknowledge him and just says ‘I’ve got a long walk.’ I’m like yeah man, you do, we’re in the middle of nowhere, making it clear there’s no ride to be had here. He nods, starts walking by me continuing on his way, stops at about the driver door on my truck and turns around, comes back to me and repeats himself. ‘I’ve got a long walk.’ At this point I explain that I can’t give him a ride, insurance and all that. I apologize for not being able to help him out, and he seems to accept this, turns around and leaves.
I wait for him to get a little ways away from my truck and start working on finishing the tarp job. I still keep an eye on him and he’s moving away from me. As I’m putting on the last of the bungee straps I look over to check where he’s at and he’s turned around heading back towards me, now about 100 yards in front of my truck and coming back my way. It looks like he’s talking on a cell phone, has his hand up to his face and I can barely make out his mouth moving, his other hand waving like he’s having a conversation with someone.
I finish with the straps, grab my winch bar, and am climbing into my truck as he’s about 10 yards away now. As soon as I’m in the cab I lock the doors, and set the winch bar on the passenger seat just in case. I look at the guy and realize he’s not talking on a phone, he’s talking to his hand and now I’m nervous, because he doesn’t look like he’s having a nice pleasant chat, it looks more like an angry conversation. I crank the truck up, put it in gear and just pull out, didn’t look for traffic or anything. 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. It gave me the creeps. About the time I hit 5th or 6th gear I look in the mirror and there’s no one there.”
Ghost Children?
“I was driving through eastern Washington on some state roads. There were no rest stops or cities but I had done the route enough to know there were these massive dirt areas every 40 or so miles where you could park safely away from the road. I decided to call it a night and closed my blinds and laid down to watch something on my phone.
After roughly an hour I hear someone try to open the driver’s side door. I haven’t heard any vehicles on the road the whole time I’m parked but I get up to peek out the curtains. As I’m looking out into the blackness of the driver’s side window I hear them try the passenger side door. I peek down from the top of the curtain but can’t see anything so I start the truck and kick on the lights.
I’m fairly freaked out at this point so I’m still not opening the curtains but peeking through gaps. Nothing, nobody is standing near either of my doors or parked within my sight line. I take a deep breath and close the sleeper curtains too, because for some reason that’s going to make things better, right?
After laying back down and convincing myself that something blew against the truck and it only sounded like the doors (it was fairly windy outside and a lot of flat ground) I hear what sounds like someone trying to pry open the vents on the sleeper. The door handles start clicking again and the truck starts shifting like someone is climbing on it. I hit the little alarm button in the sleeper hoping to spook them off but it does nothing but add to the noise of door handles, fingers tapping on windows and chassis, and the hiss of air coming out of the suspension.
Then suddenly it stops. A few moments where I can only hear myself breathing and my heart pounding before I hear another truck approach and then drive by. I spent the next few hours waiting for whatever it was to come back but it never did. 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.”
It’s A Pig Man!
“My uncle was driving between Great Falls and Helena at around 3am. He had his high beams on as it was a lonely drive and quiet highway. In the distance he saw something cross the median and started to slow his approach, thinking it was a deer. As he got closer, he realized it was standing up and so he slowed down to about 30 mph. He realized what it was and started to panic: a man in blue coveralls with a pig’s head. Not a mask, but literally the head of a pig on his shoulders. My uncle moved to the left lane and as he passed, Pig Head lunged at the truck. My uncle didn’t stop to check if he’d grabbed on till he was in the safety of Helena. Nothing was out of the ordinary there but on that stretch of road now, he doesn’t slow down for anything.”
A Sinister Face
“I’ve spent the past 4 years driving every day/night for work. I was in a fairly rural part of Mississippi somewhere between Clarksdale and Greenwood. It’s important to note it’s all 2-lane highway the 250 mile drive home. The weather had turned pretty sour as I was leaving Clarksdale.
I called my wife and told her there were high wind advisories and very possible tornado threats throughout the delta and I’d call her as soon as I made it to a safe area again. I had already been working for 14 hours when I got in the truck so I ate dinner and grabbed some coffee to stay awake and alert. Now if you’ve never driven through flat farmland at night for one hundred miles it’s very fatiguing and spooky even without inclement weather
I had driven maybe 30 miles out into the farmland when hail started bouncing off my truck. Being a Mississippi native I knew in July hail meant a tornado. I pull off to the side (I’m in the middle of nowhere, no lights to be seen, no cars behind or in front of me) and start looking for the storm/tornado I believe is approaching. I rolled the passenger window down and shined a bright flashlight off into the night. Nothing there. Turn to the driver 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.
We have all the time running cameras on our trucks. I got to the first safe place to stop and called my wife. I didn’t want to scare her so I didn’t mention the guy or the hail storm. I did however pull the SD card and check the cameras. I promise you this guy never popped up on my front or rear cameras. I’ve always played it off as my imagination. I will say I don’t drive through the delta in the dark anymore if I don’t absolutely have to.”
Bigfoot Sighting
“I was working the overnight shift from Friday night into Saturday morning at a gas station. At about 6am a semi pulls into the fuel aisle. The driver gets out and almost runs into the store clearly shaken.
His face is completely white and he is obviously upset. My first thought was the poor man had hit someone on the road (we get a lot of messed up people walking across a 4-lane highway in front of the store). So I ask what’s wrong.
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.
I say of course not.
‘I just saw something huge on the side of the road.’
‘Like a deer or bear? We had a bear get in the dumpster last week.’
‘No bigger than a bear on its back legs.’
‘Maybe a big person?’
‘It picked up a dead buck on the side of the road and carried it over its shoulder into the woods.’
I can only stare at him, my brain cannot deal with this information this late in a shift. A local comes up to the counter to get his usual and the driver tells him the story. The local says, ‘that’s the big foot that lives near the county line.’
The truck driver and I are both looking at this guy like he has two heads. He has to be joking.
This trucker pays for his fuel at record speed and leaves never to be seen again. The local still insists it’s big foot.”
Mysterious Shadows
“I used to work as a field technician in the oil industry, so I spent a lot of time driving through remote areas of Canada at odd hours. One very strange and eerie experience sticks with me.
I was in either northeast BC or northwest Alberta (can’t remember the exact location), driving late at night, when I noticed a very large black shape on the road in front of me. Thinking it was a moose, I stepped on the breaks, coming to a stop only a few feet from it. Despite being so close, and having my headlights shining directly on it, I still couldn’t tell what I was looking at. It was vaguely the shape of a four-legged animal, but very big, probably about 6 feet tall. Aside from that it was completely featureless. I couldn’t make out any details whatsoever, no shine from its eyes, nothing.
And then I noticed there were more of them in the ditch on both sides of the road. There were 5 or 6, or maybe more, all the same as the black shape on the road in front of me. None of them were moving. 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.
I don’t really believe this was a paranormal experience. I had been driving for 8+ hours through the middle of the night, and I was exhausted. Most likely, it was a hallucination caused by lack of sleep and spending too long staring straight ahead into the dark. But it was still a very unsettling experience.”
