Posted by sparta213 Mines not the coolest or most intense of any of these by far, but it still spooked my buddies and I. So about a week ago or so we went to check out an abandoned town out in the middle of nowhere. We got there fine, no one was on the freeway behind us or on the roads in town. we all start gathering up our stuff and as we look up we see that three white vans just pulled up out of seemingly nowhere and parked right next to us, effectively blocking us from being able to pull away. The people in the vans stared at us for what seemed like an eternity (in actuality about five minutes, still weird though) and then just drove off. It was one of those things that doesn't sound scary on paper, but in person scared the shit out of us.

What the fuck? How old were they? Did they look like law enforcement?

I almost had a oh shit blunder that would have ended in dire consequences. In a nearby city they are building a science building. My friend and I decided to explore it. Once we were at the very top right below the roof we heard footsteps coming up the far staircase. We booked it down the near staircase all the way to the basement. As we were looking for a different exit we heard doors opening and multiple footsteps approaching. We finally found an exit and slipped out. We tried to exit the site but at every gate was a cop car just waiting in the dark. At one of the gates was a house and so I didn't think anything of there being a car sitting in the drive. I started to squeeze through a gap in the fence when my friend yanked me back and pointed out the faint glow of a computer screen coming from within.

We had 2 more locations on schedule for that night but decided to call it once we got out.

Had an oh shit moment with an owl the last time I went out. Flew at my face. Scared me so bad I almost fell down steps.

Just yesterday had a major "oh shit" moment in a bando asylum when my buddy accidentally shut a locking door which trapped us in a small room underground. Took us about 15 mins working at the door till we got it open. NEVER shut a door in a bando unless you know it won't lock.

When you're halfway up a long, old, uncaged wooden ladder and one of the rungs breaks under your feet. A little bit of poo might have come out, thankfully both my feet landed on the rung below the one that broke - and that one didn't break!

I inspected where the rung had snapped off at both ends where it was nailed into the wood, the whole rung was rotten. Thankfully the others were less rotten so held me up...

Posted by sanctive Just yesterday had a major "oh shit" moment in a bando asylum when my buddy accidentally shut a locking door which trapped us in a small room underground. Took us about 15 mins working at the door till we got it open. NEVER shut a door in a bando unless you know it won't lock.

Holy shit, this is like a horror movie. I would have freaked out

When I first started exploring, a friend of mine and I decided to go check out an old tb hospital pretty close by that we heard about. It was about an hour or two until sunset and we had no intention of going in until we got there. POE was easily visible and wasn't too sketchy other than some glass, so we decided just to go in for a few minutes to scope it out and come back a few days later to actually take photos and explore.

When we were going in, we heard soft voices coming from upstairs and saw some camera flashes through the window so we figured they were harmless explorers like us, which they were, but also super sketchy and kind of ominous. One said that they'd been watching us the whole time we were entering and was curious when we were going to join them. (!) This freaked me out a bit but I brushed it off, made small talk, and moved on as fast as possible.

The hospital was a mirror image on both sides, however we entered on the right side of the building and in the far right upper wing there was a fire a long time ago so it got a bit unsafe if you went too far down the right wing. We wandered up the stairs watching the floor, and when we reached the top we stayed to the left side of the building.

Eventually we found ourselves up on a balcony-ish area on the top floor and the sun was starting to set, as we were in there for more than a few minutes trying to find our way around. We decided to leave but go to the left, the opposite way we came before, as the set up was mirrored on the opposite side, the floors were safer & no sketchy people. We got to the end of the hallway, went down the stairs, got through the fire door, almost out, and the last door was jammed from the other side. Of course! At this point the sun had set, and we were using shitty iPhone 4/5 flashlights. Not smart. We had to retrace our steps all the way back up to the top floor and out on the other side where we came in, all while trying not to fall through the floor or run into the strangers we found inside.

Definitely not smart on our part, in more than one way. But hey, we got out safe & learned from it

Finally had one a couple of weeks back when, at the end of an explore, I approached a big open door that I didn't think had been open before. As I did, a dude with a clipboard backed into view talking to someone I couldn't see and gesturing towards the building. I was standing like 10 feet away, and he hadn't seen me. I took a step back, and realized I'd be too loud if I moved fast enough to get out before he turned around, so I figured it'd be better if he saw my back than my face. After mentally tracing the way to the exit on the other side of the building, I just pivoted and ran.

I had kind of forgotten about this one, but reading all of these brings back the memories...

I had just arrived at a fairly well-known ghost town in eastern Colorado and was gathering up my photo gear to catch the sunset when I heard a man behind me yell out,
"Who are you with?"
I heard it before I turned around and saw it; the unmistakable click sound a gun makes when it's being cocked. I turned around and saw a man at the back door of one of the main buildings with a semi-automatic pistol in his left hand. He repeated his question, which sounded more like a statement this time
"Who are you with."
I tried not to look panicked or flustered and told him I was alone. I carefully lifted my camera so that it was in plain view and told him I was here to take photos. After an awkward moment of him staring me up and down, he broke the silence with a smile and said, "Oh, okay. So your here to take pictures. Sorry about the gun." He uncocked it and briefly disappeared inside the building he was standing beside and reappeared without the weapon. His attitude became downright friendly once he was convinced I was alone and armed with nothing but a camera. As it turned out, he had recently bought the entire town of Model, Colorado. Two weeks before I had showed up, two guys showed up and robbed him, stabbing him in the neck in the process. Assuming that the story was true, it seemed to explain his heightened response to my presence there.
By the time all was said and done, he was unlocking old buildings and offering me trinkets and random antiques to take home with me (all of which, I politely declined). I stuck around for a brief time after sunset to do a little bit of light painting, but despite his 180 degree change in demeanor, I couldn't shake the nervousness I felt about being alone in the middle of nowhere with some random, armed dude. Maybe it was a little paranoia of my own, but I could practically feel him watching me and everything I did. I decided to cut my trip a little bit short and leave a little earlier than I had planned.

Here's one of the last shots I took before I bailed:


by Dee Ashley, on Flickr

There's a pretty bad town over the mountain from me that had a very recently abandoned school. I had just finished eating 10 lbs of Golden Coral and headed across the street to scope the place out. As soon as I walked behind the school I got an uneasy feeling that other people were there. A few moments later, I turned a corner and ran almost head on into a homeless guy who was obviously on something. I said hi and he said hi back and I quickly walked away. After turning another corner, I turned around to see 2 more people, who looked like they were shooting up, quickly hide behind another building so I wouldn't see them. The worst part is that there was a fence on the other side of the school, meaning I had to walk back past all the people. I never ended up finding a way in but it looked spotless inside. Maybe I'll try in a year or two.
For most people this wouldn't be too much of an incident, but being 12 and by myself at the time made it quite a weird situation.

Posted by ryanpics For most people this wouldn't be too much of an incident, but being 12 and by myself at the time made it quite a weird situation.

Even for most adult explorers that would be worrisome- addicts tend to be desperate, and being outnumbered in a deserted area with a bunch of desperate people while carrying valuable camera equipment/phones/wallets is a situation anyone would be uneasy about.

Being a preteen in that situation? That sounds terrifying.

Not much of an oh shit moment but either way, we where returning from a explore and we came up on a guy trying to break into our ride and we had to run him off, he got scared and starting asking random questions as he walked off.

We saw him working at Home Depot an hour later and everyone had a stare down.

I was also one time on a fenced abandoned shopping street, There was a the front gate entrance and a hole in the fence at the opposite side. We came in from the back and made our way through, it was probably a large homeless camp, tons of beds, trash and things set up. We got closer to the road when we heard a voice in the distance, we didn't think anything of it because we where smack dab in the middle of town and we figured it was someone just giving a speech, right?

The voice was in Spanish so I couldn't really tell what they where saying, but it was getting louder. At one point, it started to sound closer and closer until we though he surely had to be on top of us!

We booked it back out the back entrance and once we where out and back to the car, we saw a Hispanic man giving a speech with a megaphone a few blocks over, and he was moving back and forth and sweeping over the crowd with the megaphone, so it sounded like he was moving closer.

Posted by ryanpics There's a pretty bad town over the mountain from me that had a very recently abandoned school. I had just finished eating 10 lbs of Golden Coral and headed across the street to scope the place out. As soon as I walked behind the school I got an uneasy feeling that other people were there. A few moments later, I turned a corner and ran almost head on into a homeless guy who was obviously on something. I said hi and he said hi back and I quickly walked away. After turning another corner, I turned around to see 2 more people, who looked like they were shooting up, quickly hide behind another building so I wouldn't see them. The worst part is that there was a fence on the other side of the school, meaning I had to walk back past all the people. I never ended up finding a way in but it looked spotless inside. Maybe I'll try in a year or two. For most people this wouldn't be too much of an incident, but being 12 and by myself at the time made it quite a weird situation.

Stay the hell out of there... ain't nothing but trouble.

I had one a while back while trying to check a sealed but abandoned building for entrances in broad daylight. To get to it, I had to climb over a chain link fence facing a low traffic road. Not a big deal, right?

I couldn't find an entrance, so I started to climb back over the fence to get out. Naturally, a cop rolls up to a stop sign fifteen yards away as I've got one leg over the fence. I'm basically straddling this fence, clearly trespassing and he's got a clear line of sight to me- but he doesn't see me. All he had to do was turn his head just a smidge and he'd notice me for sure.

He didn't. He drove off without ever turning his head my way as I quickly climbed down the fence. It's amazing what people miss when they aren't looking.

Back in January I'd made a trip to a pretty well known location; I parked my car nearby, walked onto the property (the gate was wide open) and started looking for my PoE. There were plenty of signs...enough that plausible deniability or selective perception likely wouldn't have helped me...but I kept moving. As I get to the front entrance of the building, I see 2 medium sized dogs about 150 yards ahead of me, running like hell towards me. They aren't barking...which made me even more nervous, and I'm wondering if they're guard dogs.
I'm standing there holding my camera, not wanting to run (at this point where the hell am I going?!), when I see a third dog (a German Shepherd) come running up...
I have no way to fend them off, no food to offer; all I can do is stand there and pray it'll be a quick, relatively painless death (I'm not trying to be funny, I was 100% sure I was done). The first two dogs reach me, and gave me a few sniffs, than began to mill about as the third dog approached, and they all began playing with each other...I had begun to slowly back up, saying a few nonaggressive words to them, and eventually we went separate ways.
They had to have been neighborhood pets, one had a harness, and I just arrived at the right (or wrong) time to be a point of interest; but it had me scared shitless for a couple minutes...at which point I decided to let that site go; for that day, at least.

My spring break story from this year: almost got pissed on by a squatter.
I was about to open an attic door, but through a small crack, I noticed obstructed light. I squinted, and was pretty sure I saw a pair of legs. Then I heard the unmistakable splatter of urine, and decided not to proceed. I'm super glad that I looked closely before popping up from the ladder and getting spritzed. The creaks of dude's footsteps above me confirmed that I wasn't imagining things.

Here's one that happens quite often and it's truly terrifying when you think about the consequences.
On several occasions fellow explorers and I have entered decaying, crumbling, abandoned mine shafts and portals. Typically only the group that enters knows the location of the dig, therefore nobody would come looking if something were to happen.
It's an all to familiar occurrence. Somebody gets snagged or caught, leans on a cracked timber, or pulls something loose they shouldn't have. Then comes that eerie rumbling as the whole mountain settles around us.
I always imagine what I would do if it were to collapse and trap us inside, who would I eat first?...

Posted by The Weekend Warriors Here's one that happens quite often and it's truly terrifying when you think about the consequences. On several occasions fellow explorers and I have entered decaying, crumbling, abandoned mine shafts and portals. Typically only the group that enters knows the location of the dig, therefore nobody would come looking if something were to happen. It's an all to familiar occurrence. Somebody gets snagged or caught, leans on a cracked timber, or pulls something loose they shouldn't have. Then comes that eerie rumbling as the whole mountain settles around us. I always imagine what I would do if it were to collapse and trap us inside, who would I eat first?...

Make sure your prayers are in order.

Posted by ryanpics There's a pretty bad town over the mountain from me that had a very recently abandoned school. I had just finished eating 10 lbs of Golden Coral and headed across the street to scope the place out. As soon as I walked behind the school I got an uneasy feeling that other people were there. A few moments later, I turned a corner and ran almost head on into a homeless guy who was obviously on something. I said hi and he said hi back and I quickly walked away. After turning another corner, I turned around to see 2 more people, who looked like they were shooting up, quickly hide behind another building so I wouldn't see them. The worst part is that there was a fence on the other side of the school, meaning I had to walk back past all the people. I never ended up finding a way in but it looked spotless inside. Maybe I'll try in a year or two. For most people this wouldn't be too much of an incident, but being 12 and by myself at the time made it quite a weird situation.

You're 12 years old???

First of all, you must be really mature for your age because I never would have guessed you were 12 years old.
Secondly, I believe that you have to be even more careful than most, because no matter how mature you are, you are still residing in the physical body of a child and people like the ones you describe above will see you as more of a target because of your age. I'm female, so I have a similar issue (to some degree).

But the upside to your situation is that it's a hell of a lot easier getting out of sticky situations with owners, LEO's and the like when you're that young.

Just be careful out there!