As with any adventure, there are risks to exploring abandoned places. Some you might expect, like weak floors, unstable ceilings, and hazardous materials, but, if some encounters shared online and in the news are to be believed, there are other dangers as well. Some of which go far beyond logical reasoning. From lurching shadow-figures in an old hospital basement, to faceless humanoids lurking in deserted tunnels, here are some terrifying unidentified lifeforms encountered in abandoned places!
Box Of Horror
When Reddit user, HellaAaron, went on vacation to Italy, the last thing he expected was to return home with a thoroughly creepy experience under his belt. But that’s precisely what happened.
He and his cousin had been backpacking along the idyllic Italian Riviera coastline, when other backpackers told them of a secret beach, hidden between the neighboring villages of Vernazza and Corniglia. The fellows eagerly went in search of it, and after scrambling down an overgrown hillside trail, which basically left them crawling through spiky shrubs, they were delighted to finally reach the beautiful, secret beach.
After spending the rest of the day lounging in the sun, the dark of night eventually began to creep in. When the time came to find their way back, however, Aaron and his cousin were unable to relocate the safe path up the overgrown trail. Luckily, Aaron remembered seeing a tunnel down by the beach. It was hardly a luxurious alternative, given that it was pitch-black, damp, and uninviting, but the boys decided to take their chances. In the very least, they thought, the tunnel could lead to the next town, assuming it didn’t reach a dead end. As the pair entered the tunnel, Aaron’s cousin briefly shone his phone’s flashlight, just to get an idea of the tunnel’s layout. With the path looking clear, and not wanting to waste the final 1% of battery left on the only phone with any charge, they fumbled on in the dark.
After 20 minutes of careful walking, the boys both stopped in their tracks. There were shuffling noises ahead of them in the darkness. Aaron’s cousin activated his phone’s flashlight, and as the tunnel lit up, the boys sighed in relief. There was no one there, but they did find themselves facing something seriously bizarre. A big box-like structure, roughly the size of a shipping container, sat in the middle of the tunnel.
The very moment Aaron and his cousin walked up to it for a closer look, their last source of light finally ran out of battery. They were plunged back into overwhelming darkness, yet, suddenly, they heard footsteps. Only this time, they knew exactly where they were coming from: inside the box. It sounded like bare feet were pacing unnaturally fast up and down the box’s metal floor, almost as if someone, or something, was agitatedly sprinting, trying to find a way out. Horrified, Aaron and his cousin grabbed each other and took off running. After what felt like forever, they finally emerged from the tunnel where it opened up in the nearby village of Corniglia, just in time to catch the last train back to their hostel. As for the box of horror, Aaron and his cousin both tried to be logical by chalking it up to a homeless person trying to scare them. Since they couldn’t see anything, they had no way of knowing whether the box was open on the other side, or if there were any litter or clothes strewn around to signal someone was living there.
A homeless person does sound like the most plausible explanation. But those cousins would always look back and wonder what kind of person would live right in the middle of a deep tunnel in complete darkness? One thing’s for sure, they wouldn’t be going back to ask.
Something In The Water
In the early 2000’s, a Redditor whose account has now been deleted but we'll call him Jim, liked to spend his afternoons as a middle schooler exploring with his two best friends. Their favorite spot, an abandoned hospital close to where they lived, was a treasure trove for exploration, but one visit ensured they’d never return.
Although the hospital’s doors were all locked, Jim and co regularly snuck their way in through a broken window. This makeshift entrance was how they began one of their expeditions to the hospital, in which Jim and his friends decided to explore the expansive basement, the one place they’d never gone before. The only reason they hadn’t delved into those eerily-enticing depths previously was the 4-feet-deep, murky waters that had flooded it some time ago. On this occasion, however, they were happy to take a dip, stagnant-water-borne diseases be damned!
Flashlights in hand, Jim and his friends walked down the stairs into the basement, each step creaking under their feet. They stopped on the bottom few steps to scan the area, but aside from some shelves and something that looked like a generator, they couldn’t really see much. Immediately, Jim got the feeling that something wasn’t right. Regardless, one of his friends put their foot on a submerged step, disturbing the eerily-still water, and the rest followed, their jeans becoming soaked as they delved into the liquid. Then, as the water reached up to their waists, Jim and his friends heard a huge splash from somewhere in the darkness beyond. And not just any splash. It sounded like something big had plunged into the water. The boys bolted back up the stairs. Jim couldn’t see anything in the dark, but he distinctly heard something pursuing, ever closer, from down the dark basement hallway.
They ran all the way to the second floor, where their old reliable broken window led out to a parking lot roof they could climb down to get to the ground. Jim and his friends waited outside for a while, and when nothing happened, they did what every horror movie teaches us not to do: they went back in. Sitting at the top of the basement stairs once more, they listened for any signs of life. Silence. One of the boys decided to throw his flashlight down the stairs in an attempt to scare whatever was down there. The flashlight splashed into the water and died. Still, nothing happened. So, emboldened by youthful curiosity, or just stupidity, Jim and his friends decided to charge down the stairs. They leapt into the water, making a ton of noise, but they fell silent the moment Jim shone his flashlight down the pitch-black basement hallway ahead of them. There, at the end of the hallway, loomed a large silhouette that looked like two large barrels, strapped together, floating on the water. Only, the shape wasn’t exactly floating; it appeared to be pulling itself along with a shambling, lurching movement.
Suddenly, with another huge splash, the barrel-like shape split into two, and the two figures doubled the speed of their approach. Whatever the things were, they were clearly alive, and it was more than enough to convince Jim and his friends to bolt out of there. They never set foot in that hospital again.
So, what did these young adventurers encounter in the darkness? Well, aside from the biological hazards of wading in stagnant water, it’s possible, depending on where Jim and his friends lived, that they were in the presence of water-dwelling, barrel-sized alligators that’d somehow moved into the flooded basement.
Perhaps the basement connected with the sewers somewhere? Or maybe it was something else entirely. Either way, you'd doubt Jim and his friends were the last explorers to go down there. Let’s just hope they weren’t the only ones who lived to tell the tale.
Barn Dweller
In May 1951, a gang of four children, 8-year-old Tony, 7-year-old Jill, and 10-year-olds Alan and George, set out to explore an old, deserted barn in Roby, a village in northern England. George had heard stories about the place from older kids, like how the barn had supposedly been used as an air-raid shelter in the second world war. With the inevitable ghost stories its historic, wartime usage evoked, the four children were intrigued.
So, led by George, the kids piled inside the barn, but the windows were all boarded shut, keeping most light from getting in. That’s when George had a bright idea: he took a box of matches from his pocket, and looked around for things to make a fire with. He found a splintered drawer, some newspapers and dry leaves, and the children all huddled together as he set the pile aflame.
The moment the barn lit up, they noticed some peculiar graffiti on the wall. Incredibly detailed charcoal sketches of people in 1940s clothing covered every inch of wall-space. But it wasn’t the impressive detail that intrigued the children. Among the portraits, they saw another drawing, depicting a terrifying creature with huge, round eyes, pointed ears, a massive mouth ringed with teeth, and long, spindly limbs. The sketch on the barn wall also came with a disturbing message. In big, bold letters, it read: KEEP OUT.
Jill didn’t like this one bit, and wanted to leave. But the boys only teased her, telling her the creature in the sketch was the bogeyman, and loved to eat little girls. But their joke soon ran its course, when the children heard a moaning sound, and out of a gaping hole in one of the walls, a shadowy form clambered on all fours. But, by the children’s accounts, this was no stray dog, it was a grotesque creature, resembling the one from the sketch, only with an insect-like shell on its back, and “eyes like belly-buttons,” living, breathing, and preparing to lunge at them.
When the creature leapt forward, the children screamed and fled the barn. In blind panic, they ran to Jill’s house, where they told her parents everything. As sensible adults, her parents didn’t believe a word, but they followed them back to the barn, where aside from George’s precarious fire, there wasn’t a monster in sight. Most sources have since concluded that, if anything at all, the children most likely encountered a possibly-rabid dog; the creepy sketches seemingly having shaped their impression in a more horrific direction.
As for how the sketches could’ve gotten there, it turned out, the barn really did serve as an air-raid shelter in World War 2. When people used to hide out there, an unknown artist liked to entertain people by drawing them on the walls.
Perhaps the artist’s audience grew bored of his human sketches, and he decided to up his game by drawing a fictitious monster instead? Or, maybe, just maybe, there was more at play than mangey mutts and overactive children’s imaginations that day in the old barn in 1951.
The Cabbagetown Monster
In August 1978, a 51-year-old man named Ernest went looking for a lost kitten in Cabbagetown, Toronto. The kitten was from a litter he and his wife had been raising, and being the mischievous one of the bunch, it always found a way to escape the house.
According to newspapers of the day, while searching the neighborhood after dark, Ernest stumbled upon a cave-like hole in the concrete of the street, the perfect hiding spot for a wayward cat. Ernest crouched down and entered the tunnel, but he didn’t get far before something moved in the glow of his flashlight. Only, it wasn’t the kitten. What Ernest saw made his hair stand on end. The thing in the cave had a humanoid shape, but it was long and thin, almost like a monkey. It had sharp teeth and orange-red eyes, and according to Ernest’s sketches, was covered in grey fur. Ernest watched in horror as the 3-ft-tall creature opened its mouth, but instead of letting out a growl, it spoke. “Go away, go away” it hissed, then it took off down a tunnel to the side.
Shaking with fear, Ernest hurried straight home and told his wife, Barbara, all about what happened. Despite how crazy he must’ve sounded, she believed him, given that, according to her, Ernest was never one to scare easily. Unfortunately, when Ernest took reporters from the local newspaper to the cave, which turned out to be a busted-open sewer, all they found were the remains of an unidentified animal. But that didn’t mean no one believed Ernest. Some believers at the time suggested
Ernest’s monster was an Omajinaakoos, a creature of Canadian folklore that
allegedly washed up in Ontario as recently as 2010, but turned out to be a decomposing mink.
Could Ernest’s creature, too, have been a malformed specimen of Canada’s native species, hissing at him in a way that sounded like human speech? For now, the answers to this mystery remain lost in time, but if you know of any sewer-dwelling wildlife that might explain the Cabbagetown monster, be sure to let me know in the comments below!
Tunnel Of Bones
In 2016, a Redditor with the username, 300SuperMexicans, was doing electrical work in an older district of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. In this part of the city, many buildings are connected by tunnels underground, and on this particular day, the Redditor, let’s call him Super for short, found himself fixing lights in one such tunnel under a building on East Redwood Street.
When his lunch break rolled around, he decided to explore the expansive network of tunnels branching off from the one he’d been working in. After twenty minutes of walking around, Super heard his foreman call for him down one of the corridors. He followed the voice into tunnels which grew increasingly cold and dark, but his foreman was nowhere to be seen. Afraid of getting lost, he considered turning around, until he heard another call from deeper within. Super continued on, eventually reaching a strange, dark room the size of a basketball court, with a 20-ft-high ceiling. The air was extremely chilly here, and the ground was strangely sticky, so much so that each step sounded like he was undoing a Velcro strap. But strangest of all was the fact that small animal skulls littered the floor, seemingly arranged in a triangle, of which one corner pointed to a large, dog-like skeleton in the center of the room.
Already disturbed, Super suddenly began to smell smoke, and his uneasiness turned to full-blown fear when he heard what sounded like an enormous dog running toward him from another pitch-black tunnel connected to the room. With the sound of heavy paws and nails on concrete rapidly-approaching, Super sprinted back the way he’d came, but somehow became lost.
After what felt like an hour of solid running from his pursuer, the Redditor found a staircase with a big, metal door at the end of it. Taking a chance, he yanked it, and to his utmost relief, it swung open. He darted through and pulled it shut behind him, just as a hard thud banged against the metal from the other side.
After that, everything fell quiet. When he turned around, he was surprised to find he’d re-emerged under the docks by the Four Seasons Hotel, over a mile away from where he had originally been working! Super immediately called his foreman to come pick him up, telling him he’d gotten lost, but keeping the rest of the story to himself. From that day forward, he refused to go into the tunnels under the city again. You can't blame him; any curiosity for what chased him, and what put those skeletons there, may be questions best left unanswered.
Cryptid In Abandoned Town
In March 2021, 22-year-old Redditor, Ki-Fu-Ki, shared a truly chilling real-life tale on the subreddit TrueScaryStories. With an hour-and-a-half drive from the clinic she was working at to her home in the countryside, she was no stranger to driving in the darkness of night.
One gloomy evening, however, after a particularly long shift, Ki-Fu-Ki found herself frustrated after a traffic accident further along the highway brought things to a total standstill. The Redditor took the first exit off the highway, aiming to get home as quickly as possible by any route necessary. With the help of Google Maps, Ki-Fu-Ki found herself on a route that led through a tiny, run-down town in the woods that looked like it had been abandoned years ago. There were no cars and no lights; only empty, boarded up houses with weeds growing around them.
The road was so neglected, she couldn’t drive faster than 20 miles an hour, and was slowly edging along, when a loud thunk came from the roof of her car. Concerned that a branch might’ve dented her ride, Ki-Fu-Ki pulled over and opened the door to inspect the damage. Stepping out, she was puzzled to find there was nothing on the roof; not even a scratch. With nothing in the road either, Ki-Fu-Ki decided it must’ve just been a large bird or something, and climbed back in her car. At that moment, an ear-piercing scream reverberated from somewhere out in the darkness. Terrified, Ki-Fu-Ki locked the door, and pulled back onto the road as quickly as she could. Desperately trying to calm herself down as she drove, she grasped for a logical explanation for that awful sound. She’d often heard that, out there in the sticks, bobcats were known to make similar screeching sounds at night. Must’ve just been the local wildlife, then, right? To help take her mind off things, Ki-Fu-Ki decided to put on some music. But just as she reached for her phone in the passenger seat, something rushed past the headlights, forcing her to slam on the brakes. As the dust settled, she looked ahead, and saw the thing standing at the side of the road.
It wasn’t a person, but it wasn’t quite an animal either. The tall, skinny thing appeared pale, and hairless, with loose skin sagging down below its arms, legs, and chin. Ki-Fu-Ki only looked at it for a second, before she slammed her foot on the gas and sped off. With actual tears of horror rolling down her face, she gripped the steering wheel so hard, she left nail-marks in the leather cover. After an indeterminate amount of time driving as fast as possible, Ki-Fu-Ki found herself in the welcoming light of a gas station, where she pulled over to call her dad.
Of course, she couldn’t tell her dad she’d seen a monster, so she said she’d seen a "man in a scary costume" instead. Her father insisted she called the police, but when she did, they expressed little concern. Understandably, a man in a scary costume freaking out lost drivers is not exactly a worthy use of police time. While nothing came of the call, she stuck with the costumed creeper story, although she was left with a feeling that the thing she’d seen was far from human. After doing some research, Ki-Fu-Ki likened the thing she saw to a
Wendigo. These cryptids have their origins in Native American folklore, and their descriptions vary widely from a malevolent, loose-skinned creature, to a deer-like, animal-human hybrid.
Both forms have been terrifyingly brought to life in various artistic renditions online, made even scarier with the careful use of photoshop to create ultra-realistic hunting cam photos like these.
There are more grounded explanations, of course. It’s possible Ki-Fu-Ki witnessed a bear suffering from mange, causing it to lose its hair and take on an unusually menacing form. Or, it really could’ve been an ill-intentioned human being, waiting to do who-knows-what. Whatever the explanation, it doesn’t make Ki-Fu-Ki’s encounter in that abandoned town any less terrifying.
The Downingtown Tunnels
In 2011, high school senior, JS, and his paranormal-loving group of friends set off on a road trip to suburban Philadelphia’s Downingtown tunnels.
The destination was known for an incident in 1995, when a local fisherman stumbled upon a maroon suitcase in the creek behind the tunnels, the contents of which hinted at something seriously twisted having occurred in the area. Since the discovery, the Downingtown Tunnels became famous for allegedly being haunted, which was exactly why JS and his friends were drawn to it.Reportedly, if you walk through the tunnels at night, you’ll emerge on the other end with inexplicable scratches on your arms. And, if you listen very closely, they say you can hear ghostly footsteps walking up and down the tunnels, seeking a way out but never finding it.
JS and his friends arrived at the tunnels just before sunset when the road was quiet. The tunnels, being very long, curved, and dilapidated, were already pitch-black inside. But despite driving through the tunnels numerous times, JS and his friends were left disappointed when nothing unusual happened. In a last-ditch effort, they parked in the very center of one of the tunnels. They switched off the lights, rolled down the windows and sat back, waiting for something, anything, to occur. Still nothing. JS decided to do one more lap before calling it a night. They drove all the way out and back, and parked in the same central spot. After several minutes of yet more nothing, JS was just about to turn the keys in the ignition, when suddenly he spotted a figure walking from one side of the tunnel to the other. He blinked a couple times to make sure it wasn’t some trick of the light, but the figure was still there.
Not only that; it had actually turned, and was walking directly toward the car. The figure was tall and human-like, but it had impossibly broad shoulders, disproportionately long arms, and a rectangular-shaped head with no distinguishing features.
JS panicked and turned on the car. But the moment his headlights lit the tunnel, the creature vanished. He and his friends all looked at each other with the color drained from their faces. They didn’t have to say a word for JS to know: they had all seen the same thing. JS and his friends drove through the tunnels a couple more times, but none of them saw the creature again if there ever was one. Since no one saw the thing in any kind of light, it could have been anything. The shadow of a rat cast against the wall by the small amount of fading light outside, one of their own shadows, a trick of the mind attempting to fill the gaps in the darkness, deprived of sensory input. Perhaps JS, thinking he’d seen something, inadvertently coaxed his friends into thinking the same thing? After all, they did go there to see something paranormal.It’s certainly comforting to assume it was some trick of the darkness. Because if what they saw really was some kind of unidentifiable being beyond scientific comprehension, what else might be lurking out there in the dark of night? Something to ponder when you turn off the lights before bed, or when something goes bump in the night. I hope you were awmazed at these unidentified creatures discovered in abandoned buildings. Thanks for reading!
