What is the creepiest thing you’ve seen in the woods, or in the mountains, or in deserts, or caves, or in small towns, or in remote or rural areas or while on large bodies of water, or while on a aircraft or a nautical vessel?

I never know if it's too late to reply or not, but I'm going to give this a shot anyway, since this incident happened in a small town, so I'm one of the lucky few allowed to tell their story.

Last year me and my friend (Matt) were spending a summer night together prank calling random people in our contact list. We sat in our car on a parking lot outside of town. It was around 2am in the morning if I recall correctly that someone pulled up behind us. At first we didn't even notice the car, since we were busy calling.

After a few minutes, we noticed the car, didn't think anything of it, though. Maybe someone checking his phone or something, nothing major. After five to ten more minutes of the car still being behind us, we became kinda curious and skeptical. Matt said that we should confront the person in the car and ask what's up. "Maybe he needs help", was a thought, too. We're both big guys in our twenties, but we were still scared, as we didn't know what to expect.

So we get out of our car and walk towards the one behind us. Suddenly the window rolls down. "Can we help you?", I asked from a few feet away. "You shouldn't be here", was the response. This immediately set the tone. "Why do you think so?", Matt asked the guy. He held a strong and lit fleshlight, so we couldn't really see his face, as he was more or less blinding us while talking. "It's dangerous around here at this time", the guy responded. I asked him who he was, if he was some kind of civil law enforcement. He told us that it didn't matter who he was and that we should get out of the area. After that, he rolled up his window and drove off, into the nearby fields on a dusty path.

Matt kinda panicked a little at this point, I don't know why. He got a little louder and said: "Dude, we need to follow that guy. Trust me, he's up to no good!" To be honest, I wasn't really in the same mood. I found that guy to be weird, but didn't think of it a whole lot more. Since Matt already got into the car, I had no other choice than to get in as well. He sped and tried to catch up to the guy, but we didn't find him.

The path led to the neighbouring town. We tried to find his car there somewhere, but didn't see it anywhere. Driving through town on our way home, we came across a really bright light. Nobody was there, it was under a bridge, sort of hidden from the main street behind a big pillar. Huge smoke clouds went up. Something was on fire.

We parked the car and got out. There were small explosions in intervals of around twenty seconds. We were the first on site, it was around 2:30am. It was so creepy, because everything was super quiet and obviously dark, except for a few street lamps. It felt like a fresh crime scene. We called the police and firefighters, who arrived super quick. We got questioned, obviously. We told them about the mysterious guy from earlier and gave them a description of himself and his car. Sadly we couldn't see his license plate when he drove off. Two female "special agents" arrived later on, too. They were quite unfriendly and left rather quickly after a few questions. We went home after that, it was a wild summer night. Which sounds wrong, but that's what it was.

Bonus for those interested: The next day we decided to go back to the place to examine the mark the fire must've left. It was in the late evening, at around 10 or 11pm. There was no one around, except for a car behind the pillar, exactly where it happened. Someone was examining the spot with a bright flashlight. It was the same car the guy one day earlier drove. In fact, it was the same guy we faced the day before. As soon as he spotted us, he turned off his lights and sped off the lot. Matt chased him through down (reckless in hindsight, but fucking awesome at the time). I was on the phone with the police to tell them about it. They told us to stop pursuing him, since we got them the license plate. We then met them at the spot where the car burned down. Obviously, they were skeptical and said that he could've just been curious, just like us. But it seems like they also believed us and agreed to send another patrol car to the registered address.

Sadly, we don't know what happened after. Matt got a phone call a few weeks later, from the police. They asked a few questions about the incident and told him that the car set on fire was stolen somewhere across the country. Sorry for the open ending, guys. I do have some images and videos of the incident, though. Enjoy!

tl;dr Spent a summer night with my best friend, got confronted by a weird guy on a field outside of town. Turns out he set a stolen car on fire minutes before confronting us. He escaped, but we saw him the next day again, leading us on a small highspeed pursuit through town.

/r/AskReddit Thread