In order to scare myself out of sleeping (lol), I decided to scroll through Reddit in search of some creepy Australian encounters.
1. "I was camping alone, west of Julia Creek, Queensland."
"I was at a friend's cattle station just having a look around. Me and my dog were chilling late at night — it had to have been midnight at least. We were by the fire when my dog sat upright and growled. I figured it was just a 'roo and told him to shut up, but in the distance I saw what looked like a match light a cigarette, then go dark. That night, the sky was really open and bright, so I could see for miles. I grabbed the torch to have a look and saw nothing.
So, I settled back down and tried to go to sleep, but about half an hour later, I smelt cigarette smoke. I sat up and grabbed my rifle and torch and started packing shit in the car only to see a match flare again about 100 meters away. Needless to say, I fucking legged it back to the station house. I drove back in the morning and had a look around. I found cigarettes on the ground and no footprints."
2. "I live on a cattle property in rural Queensland."
"On one part of the property, there's this huge bit of virgin scrub-land, so thick you get lost in it almost as soon as you enter. I've lived on this place thirty years and I couldn't draw you a map of that scrub, nor tell you about any landmarks that might help you find your way.
Anyway, one day the cattle broke into it and usually when that happens, we just call the muster off and wait for them to come back out for water and try again. But on this occasion, we needed the cattle that same day, so we all went into the scrub to find them.
After two hours of chasing shadows around the bush and losing track of where anyone else was, I find this thing in the middle of a clearing. It's like a totem or a scarecrow, and someone has built it out of old bits and pieces of fence line — rusted iron posts and crumbling wood — and they'd also incorporated animal bones. There's a pig skull at the top of it, but with a cow's jawbones, three sets of little kangaroo arms sticking out of it, all wrapped up together with rusty barbed wire.
My suspicion is my neighbour built it. He's known to be a little bit quirky, but usually in a corny, rustic 'Oh, you just have to listen to what the bush is tellin' ya!' kind of way. If the bush told him to build that, I don't want to hear it.
At any rate, I went off chasing the cattle and when I told my friends about it we went back to look for it, but weren't able to find it again."
—u/axialage
3. "This happened quite a few years ago in northern New South Wales — the old guy has passed now."
"A bluish, buzzing globe came down on the property and he said he was taken up into a ship and transported to another planet.
He said that he lived there for many years and had an alien family. When he returned, only a few minutes had passed. Later he goes to the local GP saying he's got an implant in his foot. The doc says it looks like a nail and he said it can't be, I've counted all my nails and there's none missing.
Anyway, the sighting was recorded back in '63 I think."
—u/Gusto88
4. "I was in Belanglo State Forest a few years back for Scout Hike, an annual event attended by about a thousand scouts and a couple of hundred leaders and other adults."
"My first time there, you try and forget about the reputation of the place, but everyone knows it, including the kids. At about 9 P.M. I needed to take a leak and there was a queue for the porta-loos, so I decided to wander off into the trees instead.
About 30 meters in, I shine my torch down and realise I'm standing in the middle of a bunch of scattered bones. It only took me about three seconds to realise they weren't human, but it was a bloody long three seconds."
—u/yogorilla37
5. "So Warragamba Dam has had some UFO sightings."
"Anyway this is a pub story from a place nearby. One night a local left in his car after a few drinks.
Along the dam, there is a steep embankment hugging the road. As this man drove, he saw a figure that was somehow lit, like glowing, wearing strange clothes and what seemed like a very tall hat, walking down the steep embankment with strangely smooth movement.
He slowed as he approached and the figure reached the bottom of the embankment and turned its head to look at the man. It then walked backwards, straight up the embankment while staring at him and disappeared into the trees.
The guy chucked a U-ey and drove back to the pub. He then refused to drive home by himself."
6. "When I used to shoot for a living, I pulled up to gut the first lot for the night, lit a fire and put the Billy on to make a cuppa."
"So I did the job, put the Billy on the fire and reloaded. I was getting the tags and that ready while having a smoke and a cuppa, kicked some guts out the way and there was no heart. I thought it was a bit odd. Something had come through and taken all the hearts."
7. "Not in the country, but suburban Melbourne (Burwood Highway).
"Around 9 P.M. one night, I saw strange orange lights in the sky. They were moving, then making shapes, then hanging kind of stationary, then slowly drifting. I thought I was imagining it until I saw that several cars had pulled over to watch them. Anyway if you google it, I'm pretty sure there were others who said they saw the same thing. I hardly tell anyone that story because I know it sounds like bullshit. I wasn't creeped out though, it was pretty cool."
8. "Not the true outback but a nature reserve near Canberra."
"The wife and I were doing a short trail run near dusk and as we crested a hill the sun set over the ranges behind us. In seconds, we went from almost full sunlight to the half light of dusk. At the same time all of the birdsong and insect noises stopped...dead.
I had an overwhelming urge to pick up the pace and get the hell out of there, all the hairs were up on my arms and the back of my neck for no reason other than some deep-seated, irrational fear."
9. "Back in 2009 I was camping on the beach with my wife, her friend and my younger brother at a national park near Bargara beach, south of Bundaberg."
"We had a great night, lots of drinking, had a big fire, lots of fun stories before going to bed at 1 A.M. I'm was still talking to my wife in a two-man tent at 3 A.M. when a big ute comes out of nowhere down the dirt track to the area where we were camping and pulls up right in front of our site with the high beam on and the hunting lights at full blast.
Now, my brother and I aren't small. We're 6'2 and played our fair share of rugby, but I was absolutely shitting myself. The ute doesn't move for about a minute. Just blinding us with its lights while the engine is humming and chugging. That's when my little bro steps up.
He gets out of his swag, walks over to the fire, picks up the axe, throws it over his shoulder and walks up to the ute and stares it down from five metres in front of it.
A standoff ensues for about five to ten seconds, before I get out to join him. Another few seconds later, the ute slowly reverses, then goes back down the bumpy dirt path it came from.
All of us stayed awake and alert until sunrise, absolutely shitting ourselves."
—u/d_barbz
10. "There are long stretches of the Stuart Highway of nothing."
"Straight as an arrow and not a single crossroad. I was driving late at night (part of dingo observation) and suddenly I see two lights behind me. I reasoned with myself and just assumed that I zoned out and a car came up on me.
Suddenly, one of the lights start to weave. Okay — two motorbikes. They follow me for a while still in my rearview mirror, still no closer. Suddenly, one rises into the air and shoots off across the spinifex. The other continues to follow me and then slowly fades into the night. If I were to put a name to them it would be Min Min lights, but mostly I just go on with life."
11. And finally, "A friend of mine is a volunteer who's involved in wildlife rescue, bush fire management and the sorts."
"He received a call about a couple of tourists who got it in their heads that they could load up a little rented car with some snacks and tunes, and drive it across the Australian bush. They had no understanding of the rough terrain, isolation (good luck finding a gas station) and how cold the bush becomes at night. Their friends hadn't heard from them in a few days.
My friend was near Alice Springs, which is one of the locations that they could have ended up. It's a lot of ground to cover, but he did his part and spent the day just driving around on dirt roads. Drove past familiar farms into the real outback — just miles of red dust and dry air.
He didn't find a broken down car, tourists, or anything except endless trees and shrubs. It began to get dark, so he turned around to head home. On his way back, he noticed something about one of the low growing trees he didn't discern before.
Hair. Human hair. Tufts of blonde hair were twisted around its branches. He slowed down. More hair. At least a dozen trees were decorated with locks of blonde hair and he couldn't tell if they're speckled with red dirt or blood.
When the gravity of the situation sunk in, he floored it. He frantically began radioing in to the shack in town and says he probably sounded crazy or drunk. He'd lived in the country all his life, but swears that he'll never visit the outback at night again without another volunteer accompanying him."
Do you have your own spooky story that took place in Australia? Let us know in the comments and you may be featured in a future BuzzFeed post or video.
Note: Responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
