I work nights as a zookeeper. Sometimes we have to check on the Gorillas in their indoor holding. You walk down a dark hallway, maybe six feet from their enclosure. All you have is a flashlight and it's sometime after midnight. Your goal is to check on each gorilla to make sure they are okay. The gorilla's goal is to scare the ever loving shit out of you. It's a game for them to get you to scream. They love hiding behind walls, sneaking up on you, and then bellowing as loud as they can right next to you. It's a fun game for them. Haunted houses have nothing on gorilla jump scares.

I used to work for a sub shop as a delivery driver. Weirdest thing was the Montana Cowboy. I am located in Milwaukee, WI, so we have a diverse crowd of homeless. One night around 1 AM a cowboy lookin dude walks into the shop. He seems just off on something. Can't form any sentences whatsoever. All I could get out of him was his name, Ben. Ben seemed like he was very drunk (smelled like it too) and had something else in his system. He kept kind of saying the same gurgled mess over and over. No idea what he was saying. Me and the manager I was working with are pretty chill guys, so we offered him some soup and a sandwich for free. He was so happy and thankful (I think). While he's eating, I went out on a delivery and stopped the car at an apartment. As I'm walking up, a cowboy walks out. Not the same cowboy but a different one. I said hello or whatever, but he responded with the gurgled mess the guy in the shop said to me. Like same cadence and tone, everything. Even kinda looked like him. I thought that was weird. So I got back to the shop and cowboy is still there. He's eating and saying nonsense. My manager found out he was from Montana. So I go on another delivery. Walk up to the apartment building, but wait a fuckin second, there's a ma fucker with a ma fuckin cowboy hat sitting on the stoop and asks me for a dollar. I told him all the cash I have is for my work. He said a gurgled mess like the last two guys and I left. Now here's a fuckin kicker. I go back to the shop and Ben is gone. So I go on my last delivery around 3 AM and pull up to a house. It's lit up inside and I can see people are moving around with the shadows on the window. I knock on the door... who answers?? FUCKIN BEN! And who's in the fuckin house with him?? THE OTHER TWO FUCKING COWBOYS! Ben says, "sup" hands me a $100 bill and slams the door. I was dumbfounded.

Working in a restaurant at 2:30 am some dude shows up and is just watching us through the front window... seemed drunk at first, ignored him for a few minutes, turned back around and he had a HUGE fucking rock in his hands and lifts it above his head and slams it against the window shattering the outside layer. He then looks directly at us and says "I'm gonna kill all of you." We dialed the police immediately and armed ourselves with kitchen knives. He wandered back to his car and sped off. The cops got there maybe 8 minutes later (seemed like 30 at the time) and couldn't find the guy. We were robbed at gun point a few nights later.... I just walked out and never went back.

Used to work at an ice cream factory from 6pm-6am. 2nd day on the job, this tenured line leader was trying to unclog compacted cookie dough from the machine. Used her fucking finger. It chopped off the end when it unclogged and started again because no one stopped it. I'm still fresh and new as in helping her out and learning. She jumps off the ladder and yells "IT CUT MY GODDAMN FINGER OFF!!" I froze in fear, she pushed me aside, grabbed ALL the paper towels and booked it to the ER. We found her finger tip in the ice cream catch a few minutes later and had to trash the entire batch and start fresh...just before my days off and I had to come back in the next day short handed Obligatory edit: yes, we found the bit of her finger, cleaned it and put it on ice. Took it to the ER. She got it reattached.

I worked for a taxi company doing quiet night shifts, one time a customer phoned in to say her hire was late and I had to tell her that I didn't have any bookings at her address for then. She swore me out and cut off the call. 10 minutes later she phoned back to say she found out where my office was and was coming down with her boyfriend and her brother, this was about 0230. At 0310 a car pulled up in front of the office and two men got out and tried to force their way into the office building, I phoned the police but the people left before the police got there. That was pretty scary

Was working really late one night doing emergency IT stuff. Walking around the office building, most of the lights were off and it's dead silent. As I'm walking by, this guy suddenly rises out of his cubical like a demon gopher from Hell and stares at me with what seemed like unnaturally wide eyes. It turns out he was just working late, and we had scared the shit out of each other.

I did my basic military training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Our barracks were old, dating to around the 1950s or 1960s. Every night, a number of recruits were assigned "fire guard" duty, which was essentially trying to stay awake for an hour and mopping the floor (or buffing it) until the next soldier came on duty. The fire guard post for my platoon was at one end of a long hallway, directly under a set of speakers suspended from the ceiling. Whenever the drill sergeants made an announcement, you'd hear them through the speakers. This is how they communicated reveille (wake up) and other instructions where they had to talk to the whole building at once. Usually these were communicated in blistering shouts, rendered staticky and nearly unintelligible as they blared through the ancient sound system. One night, about halfway through basic (so sleep deprivation really hitting hard by this point), I was sitting in a chair under the speakers, trying to stay awake. The speakers crackled to life, and I immediately perked up. Unusual for an announcement this time of night, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. The voice was soft, barely above a whisper. A woman's voice: "Private, get everyone outside. Right now." The comm line remained open, a low hum hissing through. The voice again: "Right now, Private. Everyone outside." Weird. Not that it was a woman's voice--it was a coed basic training and we had a couple female drills. But for it to come across so softly was very strange. When the brown rounds used the intercom, it was at full, shouting voice. I headed down the length of the hall to where 2nd platoon had a fire guard on duty similarly situated. Asked him if he heard anything, got a negative response. I made a decision: I'd chalk it up to my imagination and tiredness, and not risk having the entire barracks furious at me for disturbing their sleep in error. If it was one of the drill sergeants messing with me, and I got in trouble for not waking everyone up, at least I'd be the only one getting smoked. Nothing happened the rest of the night, and I put it out of my mind until the very end of basic, when we had our three-day field training exercise. We made it through, and the drills started treating us like real humans (almost) again. As we completed the last day of the exercise, which was a near-live fire night march-to-attack scenario, we all gathered around the fire. The drills got to talking, then got to telling stories, then got to telling ghost stories about the base. My drill (Pereda, a male), told the story of the first female drill sergeant on Fort Leonard Wood. Can't remember when it was (70s, 80s), but it was decades ago. Apparently she faced a lot of pressure and harassment, as you can imagine. It was unrelenting and harsh, and apparently she couldn't take it. She'd hung herself from some exposed water pipes, using her belt. A few years later, they'd plastered over the exposed pipes. So they could mount speakers there.

This happened a few months ago. I work at a grocery store over nights and everyone else who should've been there called out for one reason or another. I went out around 2am to smoke and I saw someone on sitting on the bench. I didn't really think of anything of it, figured it was just a drunk who was wondering around the town since there's a few bars down the street. I sat down and started to smoke and look at my phone. The drunk guy SCREAMED at me as I lit a smoke. "HEY BUDDY DO YOU MIND? MY DOG DOESN'T LIKE SMOKE!" I looked around confused as fuck and didn't see a dog anywhere. "I think your dog might've ran off somewhere, man. I don't see a dog." He stood up and opened up his jacket and he had a little pug in his jacket. I noticed he had a LARGE kitchen knife sitting stuffed into his inside jacket pocket. He started to pet his dog and baby talk the dog with very slurred words. I put out my smoke and decided I'm not going to die for smoking next to a dog. He started singing Just Give Me a Reason by pink and walking towards me as I was heading back in. Hurried the fuck back inside of the building.

I actually have a decent one for this, not scary but definitely odd. I was working in a residential neighbourhood one night around 2 am minding my own business doing an inspection when I hear someone walking up the alleyway behind me. Now I'm all around the city for this job so coming across people at odd hours is quite common. What isn't common however is for the person you come across to be wearing coveralls and a balaclava. So here I am, locked eyes with this guy, preparing for whatever is about to happen. He covers about half the distance between us and then stops dead in his tracks right beside a sedan. Dude then proceeded to whip the hub caps off this car faster than I've seen anyone do anything in my life give me a nod turn around and walk away. I've never been so dumbfounded in my life.

I used to work as a Security Guard at a shipping depot where semi trucks came in and out all times of the day. Due to bad management and favoritism I got moved to the night shift that is 9pm to 6am. The depot is out in the middle of nowhere with a large woods near it where deer and other animals were often spotted. One night I was doing my patrol around the building it takes about 1 hour and 20 minuets with proper door checking on foot. Normally We take the squad car to do our patrols but I refuse as its disgusting as hell thanks to the fat slobs who worked there always eating in it and whatever else they did to make it smell like shit. Well I about 40 minutes into my patrol on foot, it was around 1am at night and for some reason the lights on the part of the depot I was patrolling were not working. I'm walking by semi truck trailers that are backed into the building doors for loading in the morning when I hear some weird noises. I assume its just a trucker who has wondered from the parking area to do some exploring or to try and steal some stuff. I shine with my phone light to see who is out there only to see a large black bear eating what I think is a rabbit or something. The bear immediately stops what its doing and starts walking towards me. At this point I don't know what to do I am an unarmed guard and it is nothing but open ground and a completely locked building that I have no keys to. So I frantically start to run, I bolt to the closest door on the building which is up a small set of metal stairs which is at the same level the truck unloading bays are at. I climb up on the arm railing to gain some height and try to reach for the top of a semi trailer to get on top but it is to far by about 2 feet. Meanwhile the bear has started to make noises and is running towards me. I frantically jump in attempt to get on top of the trailer and grab one of the open trailer doors. The bear at this point is where I was 10 seconds ago and reaching its paws out at me. I manage to pull myself up on top of the trailer out of reach of the bear. I searched my pockets for my phone to call for help only to realize it was on the ground under the stairs I jumped from light still shining. The bear attempted to climb the trailer in multiple spots as I sat in the darkness fearing for my life. There was no point of screaming for help as the closest human being was well over 20 minuets of walking to get to me. I was stuck up there for at least 1 hour before the bear decided I was not worth its time and head back into the woods. Too afraid to come down and head back to the guard shack in case the bear was still around I Waited on top of the trailer until the other guard came down in the squad car 2 hours later trying to figure out where I went. I shortly quit that job 2 months later due to many other problems but that encounter really pushed me to quit.

I posted this somewhere else, but this is my story: I was an emergency dispatcher for the police department in my city, working overnights, when a woman called in to say her depressed husband had gone missing. She said he sometimes liked to go to a local (1800s-era) cemetery and just be alone. We sent two officers out to look for him, and they saw the door to the mausoleum cracked open. When they went in, they made their way through the very dark underground rooms and finally one of their flashlights caught the image of a figure. They thought it was the man just standing there, but it turned out that he had hanged himself from one of the pipes overhead, and was dead. The ceiling was so low to the ground that his feet were still on the floor. The officers high-tailed it out and called back to say they had found him. This was late October in Maine. Very spooky.

Probably not what you're hoping for, but whatever. I worked overnight at a pasta plant during my teens. One night my dad showed up out of nowhere (he worked there, he was the quality control manager) and told me we were going home. No explanation or anything at the time. He just said they were shutting down production immediately and there wasn't going to be work for probably a few more days. Turned out some guy fucking killed one of his kids in the plant, probably by accident. It took a long time for the rumours to get back to me, but apparently one of the forklift guys was joy riding around the place, went under one of the overhangs, but had his kid in the thing with him, and that kid was standing up with his head out the top. Apparently he either was decapitated or his neck was broken, but either way he was killed. It was creepy how it happened in the place, and it couldn't have been far from me, but I had no idea. Also really terrible and horrific just thinking about how it could have happened. As a parent now it makes me sick.

I work at an industrial copper mine in BC Canada. The mine water gets filtered through a 'tailings' process in ponds spread out through the woods. We work from 7pm to 7am, and with travel to and from work included, the work day is about 15 hours long. A typical work tour is 5 nights long, and by the end of it you are pretty tired. Driving through the forrest at night, you have to get out of your truck when you get to a pump house. On several occasions I can hear the screaming of animals (various birds, coyotes, wild cats, bears, etc) and never really understand the origin of the sound. You can shine a flashlight at the woods, but it's not uncommon the find blinking reflective eyes, so it's almost better not to. You just end up creeping yourself out. One night I was at one of the pump houses in the dark, and I hear bushes rustling just feet from me, around the corner of the pump house door I just locked. I froze in place both out of fear, and uncertainty as to whether I should unlock the pump house or run back to my truck. The rustling got louder, and for some foolish reason I shined my flashlight at the noise and walked towards it. I saw the branches of the bushes explode forward as a giant brown monster popped out. It took a second to realize it was a moose. If you have ever seen a moose in person, you know they are huge! It just fucked off in another direction, but scared the shit out of me in the process.

4am, I was in the mortuary waiting for the coroner to come and take pictures of the deceased. The person died in really sketchy details, the family didn't react the way they probably should have. A colleague and I were discussing this when the morgue fridge (cool room sliding door) slammed shut and the lights cut out. I'm not sure how i didn't have a heart attack. Turns out that every so often the door just makes a thudding noise and the lights after hours are on timers. Usually I'm in there for seconds but that night I had to wait around.

I used to be a bouncer at several different locations in the Toronto downtown area. I enjoyed working on the patio when I could despite not being a smoker because talking to people made time go by faster and hey, easier to get phone numbers. There was this one place I worked at that always had crazy shit happen. The 'patio' was also a weak chain link fence with some tarp thrown over it. The club was cheap, so the fence didn't cover the entire area so I had to be watchful of people trying to sneak in. One night, I felt lazy so I stood in the opening with my back to the street. I was talking to some people trying to kill the time. I felt some guy stand behind (coming in from the street). This wasn't too unusal, some people get turned away and when they see me, try to bribe their way through the patio 'entrance'. I was having none of it so I puffed myself up, determined to ignore him until he gave up on me noticing him. After about 10 mins of this, I started getting a bit creepied out cause the guy was just standing behind me without saying or doing anything. I turned around to tell him to fuck off, but stopped mid-sentence. This guy was a bit taller than me (I'm 6'2), kinda lanky, very well dressed. He was also covered from head to toe in blood. Like completely drenched. I thought he'd been in an accident so I dropped my tough-guy act and starting asking him if he was okay, needed an ambulance, etc. He calmly responded, nah he's good. He just wants to find his brothers. I was like "umm, are you sure your brothers are here?" He insists that they are here as they told him they'd be in X city (not anywhere near Toronto where the club is located). After his complete obliviousness to what city he's in, the fact that he's soaked in blood, and his intense stare (dude wasn't blinking), I called my boss up. When my boss appeared, I gave a quick run down of what happened. He talked to the guy very briefly, then told him he'd assist. He went and got some patrolling cops. When the cops appeared, one of them lightly touched the bloody guy on the shoulder. That's when he started screaming incoherently and tried slashing at him with a small knife that had been concealed in his pocket. The cops, my boss and I subdued the guy until he could be cuffed and placed inside a cop car. The guy was screaming loudly and struggling to hulk out of the cuffs (as the cuffs cut deeply into his wrists) the entire time. To this day, I still have to clue what the hell that was about.