Went alone to an abandoned naval barracks & ran into some dude that was tatted up & filthy, biking in circles around a building I wanted to get into. He quickly looked @ me from a couple hundred ft away & headed my way...I stayed calm but noticed he had some gang-related tatts & a colored handkerchief out of his pocket so I wanted to keep the conversation short & not be anymore affiliated w/ this guy than I already was. I knew the area around it pretty well & asked him some questions regarding local places, and he ended up lying about almost everything so that was my first "Oh shit" moment. He also kept following me saying the place he was going was my direction so it was pretty sketch, but after I offered him a cigarette he ended up leaving. This "Oh Shit" moment was more about "oh shit this situation probably would have been much easier to avoid if I brought a friend."

I am at the scene of a house fire that occurred 3 1/2 months ago. There is yellow "Fire Line Do Not Cross" tape, I have entered over a downed fence. I am up on the second story which I've climbed a ladder to a window to enter and hear rustling in the yard. I think it's people but decide it's birds and squirrels. After 15 minutes or so, I descend the ladder to ground level, go around the back of the house and continue taking pictures, I think 15 to 30 minutes had elapsed. Eventually, I look up and see a police officer standing in the yard watching me. I nearly pissed myself. "What are you doing?" "Taking photographs". "I can see that..."
Long story short, I was asked if I had any items from the house on me or in my car. I said no and I didn't. My backpack and cooler were searched and I emptied my pockets. I was escorted off the property "perp walk" style, my car was searched and they ran my driver's license. It seemed to take forever and I have never said "Yes sir" and "No sir" so many times. They informed me I was "criminally trespassing", that it was a Class B misdemeanor and I could go to jail.
Thankfully, I was let go with a stern warning. "We know you, we know your car, if we catch you hear again, you're going to jail."
I think I was just lucky!

10 seconds. On an unspecified explore, 10 seconds earlier leaving the property solo from the blind steetview POE would have changed the situation from a policeman driving past seeing me walk off the sidewalk, him U-turning as I nonchalantly put my camera bag in the back of my vehicle, and me touching my hat to him as he idles his eyeballs and Chevy by while I get into my vehicle and drive off.

I was trying to gain rooftop access to a large building earlier today, when I saw this on one of the upper- level walls near a door.


Believing that I was safe so long as the door stayed shut, I climbed up the staircase. After a minute or so, the temperature seemed to rise. Remembering something I read on a thread around here about radio transmitters, I pulled up my pants leg, and found that my ankles were noticeably hotter than the rest of my leg or body.

I immediately left the area, and when I looked at the building from an adjacent parking garage, discovered that I was within 20 feet of the base of a cluster of high frequency antennas, separated only by plaster and wood. Not sure if I was ever in any danger, but from my (limited) knowledge on FM and AM antennas, it was enough to make me leave and decide not to return.

Also, the rooftop access door was padlocked anyway, so I couldn't access it even if there were no antennas.

This exploration started out as a hike and rock climb actually.
It was the middle of February so it was still cold and a little icy.
We started to hike up to a spot that was supposed to be an amazing climb with a waterfall right next to it about 100ft high. We hiked for about three hours and finally got to the spot. We were all extremely tired from the massive elevation change so we all decided it was best to relax a while. As two of my friends were relaxing near the river with me, a buddy who goes by CJ called out to us about a "little hole in the wall". This caught my curiosity so I decided to shine my head lamp through it and discovered that the hole was actually an entrance to what seemed to be an old mine (There were wires and tracks for the carts).
I wormed my way inside and dropped down about five feet to the mine floor. We brought our gear in just incase it started to rain. After exploring further, we found a branch of the mine that went down on a pretty harsh angle. I decided to attach a rope to a secure boulder in the mine's main "hallway" and secure myself to the rope to rappel downwards into the pit. I started to go down further and further and the air started feeling stale, quiet and really thin. I called up and asked if there were any notices if the mine had dead air in it (dead air can kill you if you get too deep of stay in for too long). They looked around and said they saw nothing so I decided to go down a little more.
About what I would say was fifty feet down, I kicked a metal object while tying to secure my feet to the decline. I looked down and turned it over with my one free hand and it was a sign saying "Danger: Dead Air Space. Do not enter." I started to panic and called up to the group to help hoist me up. They tried to pull but my top got caught on a rock and looped around a pipe of some sorts so I had to free climb up about twenty feet and untangle myself from the mess.
After about a minute of furiously climbing, I made it to the top and rolled over, feeling my heart (and my pants to see if they were soiled) and breathing heavily.
I've now stayed away from shafts that are unmarked when there isn't someone with us who know the mines personally.

ALWAYS BE SURE TO STAY SAFE AND IF YOU FEEL LIKE ITS A BAD IDEA, IT PROBABLY IS!

Me and a friend were exploring an abandoned factory with two large stacks, after exploring the rest of the building we decided to make our way up there after climbing up half destroyed stairs and floors we cross the roof quickly so we wont be seen from the neighboring active factory, the ladder to continue up is attached to the building i gave it a quick shake and all seemed good i climbed about halfway up when the ladder started to swing back a little bit and i noticed it wasn't bolted in at the top, i was quickly able to grab the edge of the building and pull myself back towards it thankfully i didn't fall

Me and my friend just went and revisited an old incinerator we had been to a few times before with no problems. As we were about to go into our POE we had been to before a guy working on the premises told us we couldn't go in there. So we left and decided to go another route in. We walk into an entrance way we hadn't gone before and start walking. The floor is old rusty metal grating that is suspended over a ~15 foot drop into basically a cement pit underneath with no way out. As were about to go down a small set of stairs we see one has collapsed so we just step over it not thinking much. My friend walks ahead of me onto a longer grate in the walk way no problems. I walk over the same one and as I take my foot off of it going to the next I feel it give way and fall off. Luckily we were right by a door to the outside. So we say oh shit and collect ourselves and go outside. We go outside and realized were trapped between two wings of this building and see little way out. My friend walks back inside to see if the rest of the walkway looks fine. The walkway to our left is completely collapsed. In front of us it's old rusted sheets of metal leaving uncertainty to were support beams even are. My friend feels the softness of it see he says fuck it and comes back outside. We see a ladder to the top of the roof of one of the wings. So we climb that, and then cross over to the roof of the other wing adjacent to it. From there we climbed onto a metal structure consisting of old support beams and rusted metal grate but now were about two or three stories up. We decided to take some stairs up to hopefully find a ladder. We find more roof access and a door leading inside the building where we know concrete is. We're walking on the roof and we start feeling some softness in the roof. We get to the door aaaand it's locked. We make our way off the roof and decide to cross over onto another structure using a nice, slippery support beam. We find where the stairs would have been to the ground, if they had still had stairs there. At this point we see no good way down except to hang from the railing and lower ourselves onto a diagonal support beam to the ground. After realizing this is our best way out we put on some gloves and decided we had to go for it. We ended up making it down unscathed but most definitely shook up.

Photographing a old church in New Orleans, it was full of great statues that had seen better days. I kept moving towards the front, stepping over one statue that turned out to be a homeless man who sat up as I was stepping over him. I'm not sure which of us was scared more but I ran. It took a while to calm down before I could go back in and finish my pictures. People are the worse, it is the fact of thinking you are alone.

I have had way more run ins than I am comfortable with. but one time me and a few buddy's were exploring an abandoned Asylum. we were trying to get on the roof on the top of a tower, when we reached the top floor we opened a door which immediately set off a screeching alarm. we booked it towards ground level and attempted to leave out a back door. now normally all the doors lock from the outside but can be opened from the inside. in this case all the doors were now locked from both sides. we decided to go up a few floors and look out a window at the parking lot to see what the sort of security reaction there might be.
when we looked out the window we saw two cars roll up about 40 yards from the front entrance. it didn't take long to realize that these were in fact cop cars. we didn't know what their next move would be and we also didn't know what to do given we had forgot exactly where the POE was again. (given this place was massive) so we sat there quietly, barely saying a word to each other as the 2 cops cars sat there right next to each other with there cars idling.
it wasent more than some of the longest 5 minutes of my life before we were joined by another group of cars. 3 more cops rolled up. at the same time we heard a cliche "whooooo" ghost noise coming from the room next to us. we though maybe someone else was inside with us trying to fuck with us, but upon further examination we didn't find anyone else in our presence. it was pretty humorous and lightened the mood through out the group. but that was short lived.
The next encounter had us up and running. 2 cops came out of separate cars and opened up their back doors. that was when we heard, and shortly afterwards saw them. THE MUTHA FUCKIN K9 UNIT began walking towards the building. we took off in a frenzy trying to find our POE (a broken window) and luckily found it after a min or 2 of sprinting. we all jumped out the window and booked it towards the nearest woods. the dogs shouts became louder and the huge open field we were running through left us incredibly visible. some how by the grace of the exploring gods, we made it to the woods undetected and began booking it in the direction of our car. we were about halfway there when a car driving by a near by road began shining a spotlight throughout the woods right behind us. we were already exhausted but had a second wind when we heard more barking. we somehow made it all the way back the car and got the fuck outta dodge.
i still have never returned.

UER member Suadensky95 and I explored something which was successful.


Arrival was successful:



But the water level dropped while we were exploring. We had to portage through some slippery stank ass algae swamp and got nasty water and mud in our shoes on our way out.

Just a couple of days ago, I was trying to get into a site with one of my friends, where we spent probably half an hour trying to move a concrete block in front of a window. At some point, we met two other guys who were trying to find a way in too. Eventually, we decide to give up, and head out while the other two keep trying. As we are literally feet away from the guys, a police cruiser pulled around the building, and I'm fairly sure I peed myself a bit. We ended up just nonchalantly walking around the corner of the building a little bit away, and then hightailing it out of there. Not entirely sure what happened to the other guys -_-

So you met them at the site, had them work on moving the slab, and when you walked around the corner the police pulled up? If they got caught, they must think they're the victims of the world's most petty sting operation.

HAHA WE ENSNARED YOU INTO KIND OF BREAKING AND ENTERING EXCEPT WITHOUT BREAKING OR ENTERING SO JUST KIND OF PUSHING AND NOT ENTERING! JUSTICE PREVAILS!

This one happened pretty recently, and it's the only time I've had a too close for comfort moment with security.

My friends and I were exploring a hospital we had come across in the past month or so. For being closed as long as it has, you would never think it was shut down from the outside. Everything still ran internally like it would if it were operating, which of course makes the explore much more fun, but also brings an added security threat. Our first explore was, without a doubt, the best I've had yet. We essentially roamed the entirety of the place without any cause for alarm, and entered our second explore thinking the same would happen.

It did not.

There's an active guard(s) on duty I'm guessing at all times, but they aren't on the campus for most of the day, if that makes sense. They drive a pedophile-like van and park in front of the main entrance, so it's pretty easy to tell whenever they're at least watching. We knew that the first time too, but again, there was never any reason for concern.

Upon getting back in this time, we quickly realized security took notice of someone being there and locked up nearly everything in terms of doors and access to specific doors we used. That was a bit alarming for me, mainly when I started noticing very particular doors locked up. That sucked, but I wasn't totally surprised. We huddle back into the chapel and plan something to try and hide from the only operating camera, right near the entrance. One of our friends carefully walks out to cover the camera (I wasn't a fan of this idea), and like five seconds, he comes back in maybe five seconds later going, "GUYS WE'VE GOTTA GO NOW."

We panic and run down to the basement, which was our access to our only "clean" exit, but the building had a multi-layered basement that just got older and older the lower you got. As we were trying to not freak out too much, we suddenly hear this loud BANG from the floor above us. Again, that caught us off guard, but we knew we had at least a few more seconds to plan something out. Well, turns out our hearing was off or we undermined it, because next thing we know, there's another set of doors opening very violently just down the hall from the sliding doors we almost walked out to. The only reaction I had was instinctive, and that was to get the fuck out of there. I hauled my ass down the hall to our exit. For about five seconds, I was made of Jello because I managed to glide through this fence I had problems with before. Only one of my friends joined me in going out rather than deeper in the building, and we ran until we were off the property enough to get a view of our friends' potential exit.

My other two friends hid behind a door in the lower part of the basement (somehow). The security guard apparently looked panicked/scared noticing all these open doors, but by the grace of God, somehow didn't see my two friends as he looked in the little window in one of the doors. They waited for him to walk further down, opened a window, and climbed out to safety.

It wasn't ideal, but it definitely makes a good story now.

Not a serious as some of these, but back in middle school a friend of mine and I decided to check out a neighborhood being built. So we get inside of a house and check it out and we hear someone drive up and start walking into the house before we can leave. So we hid inside of the master bathroom cabinets and stay in there for over an hour waiting on him to leave. I'm still surprised both of us fit in that thing.

Exploring a hospital just outside NYC last weekend, we were on the 4th floor, one below the top. Me and one of my companions were stood by a door leading to one of the stairwells and from what seemed like directly above us we heard a monstrous crash, one of the loudest noises I've ever heard in an apparently empty building. As we hadn't shot the top floor yet we spent a couple of minutes trying to rationalise the noise in our minds and ended up heading up the stairs to investigate. As soon as we pushed open the door leading onto the floor, we realised that entire section of the floor - the corridor, and all the rooms in the vicinity - was shrouded in a thick cloud of choking dust which we worked out to be a mixture of fire extinguisher powder and general ceiling tile and other debris. We literally could not breathe up there the dust was so thick and choking. I stayed just long enough to get a photo of the dusty corridor before retreating downstairs to slightly cleaner air.

To this day I have no idea what on earth could have made such a huge bang up there and raised all that dust off the floor, there wasn't anyone else in the building with us for sure. In my head the explanation is that one of the doors on the roof swung shut very violently in a gust of wind which caused a pressure difference that raised the dust, but I will never know.

Posted by mookster

Possibly a wall or section of the ceiling giving way?

I was exploring a warehouse. I had my camera up taking a shot while walking through a doorway. I take the picture, and glance into the room I just entered. Two big guys in the middle of a drug deal, were watching me. I said hi and took off running. They followed. Next door to the building is a little park with a bunch of weird concrete statue design things that the homeless live in. I hid myself in a little hole and watched the guys run by.

Posted by SouthPaw Possibly a wall or section of the ceiling giving way?

Everything appeared structurally sound as the building wasn't too old, unless something exploded...it's a mystery.

I was on my way to check out some buildings, when I spotted another one along the way, and snapped a few shots. Not even a minute later I hear the unmistakable "WHOOP WHOOP" of a police car. Ah shit!

After explaining that I was just taking pictures and gave reason for being in the city, he let me off with a warning, because the 'No Trespassing' signs had been stolen. Did kinda ruin the rest of the exploration, as I did not want to risk staying in that area too much longer.