13 Of The Creepiest Real Life Stories That Still Freak People Out

6.

My grandparents are Dutch immigrants in New Zealand, and in the 1970s they had a caravan that they took out camping to a rural part of the North Island for a little family fun camping trip (my mum and siblings would’ve been 10 or younger at the time).

They were way out in the middle of nowhere near a lake in the rainforest, and after the kids had gone to sleep my grandparents had stayed awake a little while just reading etc, having a cup of tea.

They started hearing strange noises, like footsteps outside and twigs breaking, maybe a hushed voice, but thought they were being paranoid. They were getting a bit freaked out at this point, but assumed it was nothing and they’d be safe.

Grandpa told me he couldn’t go to sleep, and suddenly heard a definite footstep right outside the caravan door. He peeked out the window of the caravan and it was completely pitch black and no moonlight whatsoever, but he could see the glowing cigarette of what must’ve been a pretty tall man standing right at the door of the caravan. He could still hear other footsteps too, even though whoever was smoking this cigarette outside the door was standing dead still.

He told me he’d never been so scared in his life, but he had to do something because he had his wife and four little kids sleeping inside the caravan. He grabbed his butcher’s knife (he was a butcher by profession, lord knows why he had it on a family camping trip), opened the door to confront or yell or do whatever he could to scare the people away, but when he opened the door he saw no one and heard no noise. He thought he was going crazy, but he saw the cigarette butt on the ground outside the door, freshly finished. He got into the car straight away (he had everything ready to go luckily cos he’d already planned on beginning driving early the next morning anyways), and drove everyone away and found somewhere else near a town to stay instead.

That story freaks me out every time I think about it.”

–PoliteBrick2002