Is there anything spookier than the night shift? For truckers, it's all about being alone on the dark highway for hours, surrounded by miles of blacktop and open land or forest, with only energy drinks to keep you company. You never know what might come your way—wildlife searching for shelter, strange hitchhikers, or even something…unexplained. Redditors who have made a career of rolling down these shadowy back roads share some mysterious experiences that beg one question: what spooky things have their headlights uncovered? 

Join us as we explore their stories from behind the wheel!

1. A Car Throwing Sparks

One Redditor shared, “I was driving between Melbourne and Albury very late one night on the Hume Freeway. For the non-Aussies, that stretch of the Hume is very wide, flat, and straight, so it's boring and hypnotic, especially driving alone at night. It was the middle of summer, so I was surprised to see little wisps of fog whipping through my headlight beams, but then the smell of burning plastic hit my nose, and I realised it was smoke. Up ahead, there was one other car on the road, and I could just make out a tiny yellow light on the back, like a candle flame.

“Worried, I sped up to catch this guy, and by the time I reached him, his entire muffler was on fire. I flashed my lights and honked my horn, trying to get his attention. Just as I drew up alongside him, I saw him turn to look at me, and then a HUGE gout of orange flame burst out from under the car and licked across his driver's side window.

Burning Car

“Needless to say, he pulled over in a big hurry, and I pulled over about 50 meters ahead of him. I jumped out from behind the wheel and sprinted back to him to make sure he was out of the car and safe, then went back to get my phone and called emergency services while running back to him. It had been less than a minute since he'd pulled over, and the entire car was a fireball.

“I asked if he was okay, and he said yeah, but his phone and wallet were both still inside the car. I let him use my phone to make some calls and gave him all the cash in my wallet, which wasn't much at the time, and finally continued on my way once the firefighters and ambulance arrived. Let's just say I was WIDE awake for the rest of my drive.”

Helping a Stranger

“You're a wonderful person. Handing him the cash and waiting with him was great,” one user replied. 

The OG sharer commented, “It wasn't much, just like 30 or 40 bucks, but the dude had just lost his car, phone, and wallet in a single event, so it seemed like the least I could do. I'm just glad he got out safely.”

2. Prevented a Murder

A user shared, “TL: DR Stopped to help a motorist with a possible flat, which may have prevented a murder. I service fire equipment, so I drive a box truck and cover parts of PA, NY, OH, MD, and WV. I was in rural [northwest], PA, returning from a service call and heading towards the interstate to go home. On the way to this customer, I saw a small pickup truck on the interstate whose right rear tire was steadily deflating. Then, a mile or so before my exit, they pulled off to the side. I didn't stop to see if they needed help and felt a little bad about it.

“As I drove down this dark, twisty road, I passed a Dodge Durango pulled over into a barn driveway. There was a person lying on the ground behind it, struggling with something. It looked like the guy was trying to change a tire or get the spare out from under the Durango. Remembering the pickup from earlier, I decided to turn around and see if he needed help. I pulled into the first driveway I saw, about 1/4 mile down the road, turned around and headed back. Halfway back, the Durango passed me, going in the direction I had originally been headed.

Abandoned in the Snow

I got back to where I had seen the Durango, planning to turn around again, but as I swung into the driveway, my headlights caught a figure lying motionless in the snow. I stopped and jumped out just as the figure sat up. It was a woman, maybe in her 40s, in a thin, torn black skirt and top. Her hair was mussed, her eye was starting to swell, she had red marks on her throat, and her lip was bleeding.

“I helped her up, got her into my truck, and cranked up the heat. I had taken my jacket off, so I gave it to her, and she covered her torso and arms. She didn't want to say anything. Her throat was sore, and she was badly frightened. I called 911, and they dispatched a police car. I gave her a bottle of water, and she whispered, ‘Thank you,' and then sat with her head bowed and eyes closed. It took about 15 minutes for the police car to get there, and she stayed silent.

Rescue from Mysterious Circumstances

“As the car pulled in, she said, mostly to herself, ‘He's gonna arrest me.' The trooper walked up and motioned me to exit, asked her if she needed an ambulance (she declined), then asked me what had happened. I explained what I had seen. He wrote everything down, then talked to her for a few minutes. Finally, he helped her out of the truck and into his car. She quietly thanked me for coming back because she thought that guy meant to kill her.

“As far as I know, she wasn't arrested. She was pretty beaten up, and the trooper spoke and handled her as if she were the victim of an assault. It was almost certainly a transaction (sex or drugs) that had gone badly. I never found out what had happened. I watched the news outlets for that area for a while but never found anything.”

“Rural NW PA is one of the weirdest, most backwoods places I've ever been.”, a user responded. 

3. The Meteor

One user posted, “Myself and another truck were traveling Highway 1 between Medicine Hat, Alberta, and Brooks, Alberta, on our way home from Saskatchewan, and it's really dark there since you're 100 kilometers away from any town lights. And then, all of a sudden, the whole sky lit up as green as grass, and a huge fireball streaked over us. We all immediately pulled over and asked each other. [What] was that? Heard on the news the next day that it was a meteor the size of an office desk that landed somewhere between Lloydminster and cold lake. We had never seen anything like it.”

However, one commented, “That would have been amazing to see.”

The original commenter replied, “Probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but I hope not. I'd like to see that again…. Well just without the world-ending destruction it could bring.”

4. Out of Nowhere

One Redditor shared, “This is gonna get long…Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I was delivering and installing machines. I was in a 26′ box truck with 12 machines in the back…Since I was behind schedule due to the truck and problems with installations, I decided to drive late to my next destination. It was about 11 o'clock at night through the Upper Peninsula. There were no street lights. There were no other cars. The headlights from my truck were the only thing illuminating the road. 

“At the peak of feeling like I was in the middle of nowhere, every single light on the dashboard of the truck lit up, and then it stalled. Now it's pitch black, I am stopped, and the truck isn't restarting. So I shut everything down and started making phone calls. As I was calling everyone and anyone that would listen, I sat in the dark night, with the only light being my hazard lights. I looked up and saw something move in front of the truck, just out of the distance of the flashing lights.

“At first, I thought it was my imagination. I finally got a hold of someone and they told me it would be 2-3 hours before they could get a mechanic to me. So now I am sitting in silence,… staring out the windshield into a void of darkness when I see movement again. Just as I was about to shit my pants, my phone rang, and that nearly scared the heck out of me. It was a mechanic that wanted me to get out,… and check some things out. ‘No. I am not getting out of the truck.' He was irritated with me, but I didn't care. So finally, after seeing the movement just out of range of the lights one more time, I turned on the headlights.

“The headlights caught three wolves snacking on something that looked like roadkill. I honked the horn, and they looked at me like they were irritated more than scared. I was safe, the wolves more than likely weren't going to bother me, but it was spooky just knowing they were there. So I shut the lights off.

Wolves in the Wild

“I would turn the lights on occasionally to check to see if they were still there. I was basically just sitting there listening to the hazard flashers click while surfing my phone. Each time I turned the lights on, the wolves were still there… I am in the middle of nowhere,… nothing but trees, wilderness, and wolves. I suddenly heard what I could only equate to a woman's scream of terror that sounded like it came from right behind the truck. Then something slammed into the side of the truck, hard enough to rock it. I wasn't afraid of the truck tipping over, but whatever [it was] hit it hard enough to rock the suspension [and] move me around in the cab…

“I turned every light that the truck had on. I slipped it into reverse, so the reverse lights came on, and laid on the horn. I was checking both mirrors, and the only thing I saw was a shadow bolt across the road. I couldn't make out what it technically was, but in my head, it was the werewolf-yeti-Bigfoot-Lizard monster that was going to end my life, and it was going to be agonizingly painful the entire time.

“I also noticed the wolves were gone. From every nature documentary I've watched, the only time predators leave food is when there are bigger/badder predators around. By this time, I was in full Bobby Hill ‘That's my purse, I don't know you!' mode. Whatever crossed the road didn't cross very far off the road. I could hear it thrashing around in the brush, breaking sticks and what sounded to be logged. There was no noise pollution. I only had my window cracked a little bit and I could hear pretty well.

Monsters in the Dark

“I basically had the steering wheel gripped, all the lights on, and was feverishly looking out the windows and through the mirrors to make sure nothing was around the immediate area of the truck. I couldn't see off the road, and the flashlights I had were in the back of the truck in my tool bag. I'd have to get out of the truck to get to them.

“Finally, I saw some headlights through one of my mirrors. It seemed like it took hours for them to close the distance to me. The noise stopped as the headlights approached. It was obviously the mechanic because no one else was stupid enough to be out there besides me. The mechanic pulled out in front of me. My headlights were shining on him and his truck. As his door opened to step out, we both heard the ‘Woman screaming in terror' yell again, and the brush thrashing intensified… His door immediately closed, and my phone rang.

“He called my phone, asking me what it was. He sounded more panicked than me. I had no clue what it was, and he had no clue what it was. So the mechanic called the police. He wouldn't work on my truck until we could secure the area, which I don't blame him for. He didn't like my idea of him getting out of his truck just to check things out.

“Two Michigan State Police officers showed up. They lit that area up like it was a stadium. I finally stepped out of the truck for the first time since it all started. We heard that scream three more times while the mechanic was working on my truck. Thankfully they were getting further away. The cops had no clue what it was, either. They were kind of spooked too.

“The mechanic finally got my truck running, and I made it to my hotel for the night. The next morning I walked the truck for inspection, and the side that was hit, there was an indentation about the size of a basketball. Whatever hit it, didn't hit it hard enough to push all the way through, but it definitely mushed the fiberglass. The indentation was about 7′ off the ground.

I have no idea what it was. I probably never will. I do confidently know that I will never ever drive through the Upper Peninsula at night again…“

Read the original stories on the Reddit thread, here.

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