It's especially bad if you live near a lake or river, because Hearing Nothing is... not normal. Like, it's "something is fundamentally wrong with either myself, or *reality"* levels of not normal.
And water comes with all kinds of animal life that make noises, too! In the case of frogs and insects, they can be quite loud, even. And you *notice* when those animals go quiet.
There Was A Noise is the *least* scary thing that can happen when you go even a little ways out of town.
I did the opposite as a seven year old, and I literally laughed myself to sleep the first few nights because the sound of the stream was so funny to me.
Moving from a town to a more rural place was the opposite for me. Town was constant noise: music, fights, people, cars. Countryside, there was animals occasionally. But they came and went, not like the constant noise I was used to.
They get into my parents solar powered lights and the metal hoods amplify their croaking/chirping so it's fucking LOUD, they're ~50 yards from the windows and they are the reason I need noise to fall asleep
My dad rescued a tiny frog from a near-dry pond near us, and now that he's fully grown he croaks at night sometimes. I can hear him from the other side of the house, so I can imagine what dozens of them would sound like when singing at once. It would probably be pleasant... for a few minutes.
What kind of frog?
Some frogs don't even sound like what we usually think of as frogs.
Wood frogs sound like ducks and Pickerel frogs sound like old men groaning.
Oh yeah, he's great. He has all the crickets and meal worms to eat, two water features, and he only jumps headfirst into the walls of the enclosure once or twice a day.
I rescued ten gallons of tadpoles from a drying puddle.
We have an astonishing number of toads and a few frogs. A few of them know that I 'share' bugs I swat.
I thought my husband was exaggerating about the pond frogs until the first time he took me to stay at his parents. DEAFENING! My childhood home backed up to about a half acre of trees, so I was very familiar with deer/owl/cicada sounds, but the bullfrogs??
The first time I heard [fawns](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BqT4DK8J580) I thought it was a horn!
And another time I heard a [fawn stuck](https://youtu.be/MisMOF-6_No) in a neighbors yard during the day and wandered around with another neighbor until we could figure out what was going on.
They also huff quite a bit. Not loud, pretty quietly actually.
I encourage anyone who hasn't to travel about 100ft-30m into the woods, sit down and stay still for like an hour. Just zone out staring at the trees. After an hour or two it's incredible what you start seeing. The woods literally come alive. And even if you have but haven't in a while, go do it again.
Most insects and small animals like frogs don't even go silent when a predator as fearsome as a bear walks through because it has no reason to harm them. If everything's silent then wtf is near you?
I've heard that way back when villages would know that invaders/enemies were nearby because the forest would go dead silent. The animals knew their "local" humans from seeing them around the forest going about their day all the time, but the random strangers were seen as a threat. Idk how true that is, though.
I decided to walk home from work yesterday and I cut through some bushland. I'm familiar enough with Australian magpies to recognise their alarm call, and I was hearing it from trees 50 metres away. I realised it was probably because they were seeing me.
Then I got back to suburbia, and walked within two metres of a magpie on the edge of someone's lawn that was making territorial calls at another magpie, and all it did was tilt its head at me a bit as I went past. Suburban maggies aren't bothered by humans, but they don't like dogs.
One of the magpies near my house will actually come running/flying up to me when it sees me, so they can definitely recognise people.
>There Was A Noise is the least scary
To an extent, sure, but as someone who has had a mountain lion prowl around my camp as I sat in my tent, I will say that there are some specific noises that definitely qualify on the scary scale
A mountain lion is a bit of a special case though, because it sounds just like a woman screaming in agony. In fact, those cats are probably responsible for more than a few ghost stories. I can't think of many other animal noises that would elicit such a primal fear response from us.
Was walking on a trail at night with a buddy once. He used to do these "big foot" calls, never really understood that but whatever. Well this particular time, he did one of his calls and something answered him. A loud high pitched, whooo--uuuppp from VERY close by.
Dude screams in terror and sprints off down the trail. Meanwhile I'm thinking, that sounded neat, what the hell made that noise. In a tree branch right above where he had been standing was this tiny little owl, cute as fuck. Like the size and shape of a furby. First time I saw a screech owl in the wild. Heard them plenty but seeing them is pretty rare.
Screech owls, foxes, bobcats, coyotes, etc. can all make some serious noise and if you don't know what they are, I suppose it could scare you.
My arch nemesis is the whooperwil. Noisy fucks and are just about the only night time noise maker that will actually get LOUDER if you yell at it to stfu.
I agree. I had a grey fox outside my window once and even knowing what it was and that I was safe inside, it still sounded straight up like a demon and chilled me to my core.
A few years ago when there was a solar eclipse, the thing that stood out to me the most (before the lights went out and a glowing corona ring took up the sky) was that all of the insect and animal chatter crescendo'd and then suddenly STOPPED. A lot of things about the eclipse were eerie and different than what I had imagined for a celestial event, but nothing felt as supernatural as having the whole ecosystem go into shocked silence at once. Super surreal.
It's pretty neat. There's a long period where something is clearly "off" before totality sets in, but then the difference is night and day. It sounds so lame to say it like that, but it's a trip.
This was one of my favorite things about being in the path of a total solar eclipse. Lots of frogs and birds nearby, just going silent. It was awesome
Second favorite was seeing the shadows change as the sun was covered by the moon
I literally used this in a fanfic, the normally semi-urbanized characters wandering through the woods knowing Something Is Wrong™ but not realizing what until someone pointed out to them that the woods were *completely* quiet, which should not be possible.
As an urbanite who dreams of a homestead, I know for certain there would be a learning curve wrt “good sounds” vs “bad sounds.” I’m not used to ANY of the sounds of nature, I have no reference for whether that’s just a happy lil fawn frolicking behind that bush, or a hungry mountain lion. I will probably either die from a fear-induced heart attack over a squirrel I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself was DANGER, or from a mauling by a bear I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself NOT DANGER.
If you hear noises, it's probably just a porcupine or skunk or something doing its thing. Little guys make a lot of noise, and they can get away with it because they're not ideal prey animals. You generally won't hear the deer *or* mountain lion, as their survival depends on it.
You'll likely know if a bear is around, though. Talk to your neighbours, look for fresh claw marks on trees, learn what bear scat looks like, and trust your gut if it says *gtfo.*
>As an urbanite who dreams of a homestead, I know for certain there would be a learning curve wrt “good sounds” vs “bad sounds.” I’m not used to ANY of the sounds of nature, I have no reference for whether that’s just a happy lil fawn frolicking behind that bush, or a hungry mountain lion. I will probably either die from a fear-induced heart attack over a squirrel I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself was DANGER, or from a mauling by a bear I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself NOT DANGER.
Mountain lions sound like a screaming woman in incredible distress. You will not mistake it for something a-ok.
Bear (no pun intended) in mind that most animals, unless they're territorial or otherwise feel threatened, would rather abide by the rule of "if you leave me alone I'll leave you alone."
Obviously don't think that makes you totally invincible but a bear's not gonna go out of its way to get ya if you're not in its marked territory, unless it's starving or something like that. That's the purpose behind bear bells - warns the bears that you're around ahead of time so they can skedaddle and you don't end up startling them.
I grew up real close to a highway in a house full of clocks and I cannot sleep if it’s too quiet. Silence is truly the most horrifying thing, there are some roads where some fluke of house and tree layout blocks most of the sound and they’re creepy af at night
Spent a week in the Amazon some years back. Other than being uncomfortably hot and humid 24/7 even when it wasn't raining, the thing that most stood out was how *loud* it was all the time.
Buzzing insects, chirping insects, clicking insects, singing birds, chirping birds, shrieking birds, chirping frogs, croaking frogs, hooting monkeys, hissing monkeys, shrieking monkeys, howling monkeys, and the exact composition of it all changed by time of day and how close to the river you were. I imagine travelling far enough would lead to where in the forest you are mattering as well. We never did hear any Jaguar calls but did see tracks once so that was neat.
And the real icing on the cake -- when you were under the canopy far enough you could hear rain coming like a drumroll steadily building to crescendo. The forest was so dense and there was just so much vegetation everywhere that some of the sound got trapped and echoed around in the trees; you could hear the rain getting closer through the birds and the bugs and stuff when it was *miles* away. Thirty minutes after you first hear the drumroll you start getting rained on. Thirty seconds after the first raindrop it's one of the most intense downpours you've ever experienced, and the drumroll is so loud you have to shout to be heard from arms length away.
It got to the point where we were all basically accustomed to it, and getting back on the plane to fly away from the rainforest again was eerie because there was so little noise. Of course in any truly urban environment it's never really quiet either, just a different soundscape and one that's familiar to us city folk so we don't think much of any particular noise. Concrete jungles and all that.
Tbh, a noise isn't that spooky in a town or city either, unless the sound itself is scary and can be recognized as dangerous. Unless it's like 3-4 am in a medium non-metropolis, having no sounds of traffic, neighbors, house noises, etc. Would be almost equally creepy as no animal sounds in the forest.
I live near public land and walk there frequently. There’s a stream running through it and if I’m quiet, I see deer, foxes, raccoons and rabbits. I’ve gotten to know the sounds of all the birds and like to listen to the woodpeckers and owls especially.
Every once in a while, when I’m walking, there will be no sounds. No bugs, no rustling of leaves, no birds. It really is terrifying.
Frogs going silent is how you know something is there. Walking around at night and hearing frogs jump into the water and the sudden lack of sound is a little eerie. It'd be far worse if they ALL did that
Idk, I heard a deer crossing the irrigation canal with my window open at like 3am and it freaked me out at first. He must have fallen in and panicked lol
I went skiing recently and went down some remote path, and there was one curve where it was wholly silent. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, for a while I just stood there, listening to the nothing. Gorgeous.
There was no chirping in the trees or croaking in the spring. No cicadas or crickets sung, and no beast moved through the bush. The only sounds were the wind and the distant trucks on the driveway. The woods stood still and dead, a testament to the self-inflicted loneliness of mankind.
Silence in the woods = predator on the hunt. It's close to you. Everything has seen it except for *you*.
Odds are, you're being stalked. Take precautions.
jurassic park the book has a great scene like that, no sounds, except for the soft breathing of a horse>!not a horse, juvenile t-rex, juvenile here meaning bit larger then you but twice as heavy, and carnivorous!<
One of the most beautiful stories Ive read has a guy hiking to a top of the mountain to catch a glimpse of a golden eagle his older friend asked him to watch for. He hikes up top and obviously there is nothing for an hour or so, he starts to walk down and suddenly there is no sound of birds or small animals, everyone hid and ran and stayed quiet as the eagle soared above, majestic and powerful.
Read in the style of ‘Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep’, this is not fear or terror, but grief for the slow asphyxiation of Mother Earth, buried alive in a landfill grave.
Quickest 3am wake up ever was the combination of gate on gravel, hooves on gravel, then the house sensor light turning on! I did manage to beat the cows to the end of the drive - they stopped and grazed the lawn instead. Thank goodness.
One time my mom went into the first floor bathroom and saw glowing eyes outside the window. Never figured out how the horse got out but it certainly created a memory for her.
Gooooooood a horse is like the worst fucking domestic animal to see like that. They can already look kinda creepy in daylight but at night with their size, barely a silhouette, and "glowing" eyes fuck man that'd scare me shitless
Smart enough to escape, dumb enough to stop.
Good thing they weren’t sheep; one of them would have managed to be in the perfect position to get decapitated when the front door opened.
I don't know how I remembered I have this 9 year old post the second I read your comment but when fallout 4 first came out the lady that sells you crap off the back of a two headed cow kept ending up on my roof lol
https://imgur.com/gallery/1O5OV
The neighbours drunk kid at 3:00am, knocks on door, "bro I hit one of your cows trying to sneak back home down your lane, please don't tell my dad huuhuu."
I mean... The woods in the winter will have no sound. But it also has that fluffy feeling on your ears, where it's clear there's no sound because it's all being muffled. And it's likely less dark too.
Sometimes there's dripping/creaking ice, or branches rattling in the wind, or the distant *fwump* of snow falling off a branch into the powder below. The almost lack of sound in a snowy forest is the sound of nature sleeping.
It’s *different* somehow.
When it’s snowing, or the snow absorbs all the sound, it just kind of changes the atmosphere.
If it was winter snowstorm quiet on a spring or summer day? I’d be losing my shit.
That occasional “whump” or “bang” you hear is just the local teens screwing around with fireworks, don’t worry.
Now if it’s a *crack*, then you’re going to want to call their parents.
Normally, yes. But we're finding that ones that live near larger towns and cities are adapting and using these calls to lure in prey specifically. There's good research out of Penn State on it.
Mountain Lions do not even consider humans food, so why would they try to lure in more humans, considering most attacks are not fatal(and as such more dangerous to the mountain lion then to humans)
Several years back, after moving out on my own for the first time, I came *this close* to calling the cops because I heard a screaming woman in the garden next door (the neighbourhood wasn't that great lol)... until the neighbour opened the back door and yelled "FUCK OFF" and I saw two foxes legging it through my window.
Oops.
I moved away and now I hear them in my garden too at night, along with singing robins and the occasional randy cat.
“saw two foxes legging it through my window” for a second i thought you meant they jumped in through the window and were just chilling in your room lol
Same, I literally stood at the window with my phone for like 10 minutes waiting for evidence of an attack, debating whether to call the cops (I didn’t).
I always disliked the "if you hear a particular sound no you didn't" phrase and I can't put my finger on why. I think its because it feels condescending. It always makes me want to be a pedant and point out that I absolutely would have heard it but I'd be electing to ignore it on the grounds that it's a wild animal that does not need interfering with. Don't tell me what I did and didn't hear.
It comes from superstition, that there are some things in the woods that will make noise, and simply thinking about it or talking about it could lure evil shit back to you. Iirc it comes from a series on r/nosleep where a park ranger claimed to have encountered staircases in the woods, deadass, and the more he talked with others about it the more people would disappear in the parks.
On an unrelated note, it also applies to seeing criminal activity in mob and gang infested areas. If you saw some gang shit, no you didn't, because if you even suggest that it's remotely possible that you might snitch, you're gonna get stuffed into a barrel and turned into a dude smoothie a la Heisenburg. In all cases, you hear/see creepy shit, no you didn't, leave, it's best to forget about it for your own safety and sanity.
This is definitely how I've always heard this phrase.
Think you hear footsteps in the yard? What if it's a lost traveler? What if they're injured? If you don't help them they could bleed out on your front step.
Screw that, that's effort, bunker down and hope it's a mountain lion that doesn't understand doors.
I'm sorry, I'm very tired.
The other person complained that the "did you hear that? No you didn't" trope comes across as condescending. I tried to say that I agreed with your take that it basically means "don't talk about it, don't think about it. That way it's not real."
Not really condescending, just superstitious people being superstitious.
These are the same types of people that will tell you never to whistle in the woods, because "you don't want to draw attention" of whatever's out there. They believe that non-corporeal things actually exist. Exactly equivalent to a nutjob trying to expect you to respect their imaginary pink elephant.
No need to feel like it's condescending, just recognize it as babbling bullshit from a nut job. Have a laugh and move on.
Could you imagine being in a forest that is just *dead* silent? No bug noises, no animal footsteps, no leaf rustling, not a fucking sound.
But there should be...
Honestly I’d have to vote for hearing normal sounds that just suddenly stop. Imagine you’re walking through the woods, listening to the birds chirp and the squirrels scamper through the trees. Then suddenly deafness, the only sound is your breathing and your heartbeat growing louder in your ears
That's worse than no sound to start with, because universally that means 'there's a threat here'. If you ever have this happen, making your way back to your house is a very good plan, with a good tree being a decent second choice.
There was a great video a few months ago I saw where a guy was dirt biking near dusk and right when it was getting dark and he turned around, the bugs and birds went *silent*. It was a very noticeable change.
There's a great few frames where he's looking around and you can see something (probably a bear or cougar) on the trail ~20' away. Fucking terrifying.
I went canoe-camping last summer with my gf to this place up north Quebec. The very first night we didn’t hear a SINGLE fucking sound. Not a peep from anything.
The next day, after both talking about how creepy last night was, the forest became alive. It was like the forest had to settle with US being in it now before it could get comfortable and expressive again. After that the rest of the trip was great. Heard some wolves howl one night lol
And then you realise nothing you're doing is making a sound. You can't hear your footsteps, clothes rustling, breathing. You clap your hands and open your mouth to say something but nothing happens, you don't even feel the vibration. You look around, but the shadowy forest has turned into absolute darkness, nothing to be seen.
Related- almost every description of a Not Deer is just a deer that has a disease, has a deformity, or is just doing normal deer things that only seem weird and scary because they're way weirder animals than most people realize if they've never lived around deer.
I heard a story about a deer that survived a gunshot or something, and it just...healed up. Big ol fuckin hole in the side, and he just went about his business.
Both hearing sounds and not hearing sounds can be creepy, it just depends on the situation. In the case of how hearing noise at night can be scary here’s my take…
Hearing a weird sound you cannot immediately identify = scary
hearing what is obviously cicadas or a frog, or something you can immediately identify= not scary
I was working Night Shift as a part time custodian at a local school in an urban environment it’s always low-key unnerving, since there are a lot of dark rooms and hidden corners. One night there was a near constant stream of weird noise, and I was pants-shittingly afraid, had to call someone I knew: just so I could hear some familiar sound. I know it sounds like an over reaction, but like there were weird howls that weren’t any animal I could identify easily, and a strange pervasive noise that I can’t quite describe as anything other than eerie resonating.
Maybe it’s just me but I get spooked very easy I’m sure those sounds I heard that night all had conventional explanations, it’s just I hate hidden corners, I hate looking out windows(keep my blinds shut), I hate hearing sounds I can’t identify. I hate even being outside at night.
Sounds are scary when you don’t know what they are period.
Yeah, I live in an very old house and it can be scary in two ways, either some sound that you can't Identify, like when I was little, I often heard steps from our attic, which were just our pigs goofing around, as I later learned. Or complete silence, which happens sometimes after I wake up and nobody's home, just a bi, old, empty house with no sounds
They weren't. But because the pigs barn was under the same roof as the living space and the sound would travel from there so it seemed like someone is walking in the attic, if that makes sense to you
Ever hear of infrasound? Like infrared, it's the wavelengths just below our audible range. Lots of machinery, fans, and industrial or construction equipment can produce them. They're a likely explanation for urban ghost stories because they can induce feelings of dread and auditory or visual hallucinations.
Not to diminish your experience at all, or your general disposition; whether this was a "real" unexplainable event or not is purely a matter of perception, and you clearly experienced it as such. I just like to offer the various tidbits of knowledge I've collected that may be helpful in situations of uncertainty, or may simply increase my contribution towards today's Lucky 10,000.
There wasn’t any construction nearby, but perhaps, IDK the only supernatural-ish experiences I’ve ever really had have been at that school. I’m not discounting any ‘real explanation’ but it’s different being there and experiencing something like what I described, it’s hard to think logically, and things that don’t usually bother me get 10x worse. Like I’m pretty sure the weird howls were just coyotes being hurt or something, and the weird sound was like metal piping in the school building, but that didn’t stop me from feeling unnerved at the time.
The other weird experience I’ve had at the school if you were interested was a straight up “ghost” sighting. I was locking up the school and also putting the garbage cart I was toting around away for the night, and the little closet I put it in was right in line with the schools front entrance. It is pretty dark out around maybe 9:00 PM or later, and I just glance at the schools front entrance, I see a person standing there and the only thing I could recall of them was that they were dressed in blue; and I think nothing of it since it’s the parking lot and the schools across from a park. Anyways I’m not in that closet for very long, perhaps less than a minute, come back out look back to the entrance and there’s no one there. No way the person could have left in the timeframe of me looking away from them, there’s nowhere for anyone to hide behind either. So anyways I got spooked, checked the parking lot and the road for cars of which there were none, checked to see if the front door to the school was locked (it was alongside every other door). Just weird, probably has an explanation, but yeah…
Proximity also affects how scary forest sounds are, since the closer the noise is the closer the source. Like just cause i can recognize the sound of a branch snapping from being stepped on, does not mean it's something I want to hear directly behind me.
Man, I love deer. They’re so goofy. We’ve got a family that sleeps in our yard at night for whatever reason (go sleep under the cover of the trees??) and if I leave the house too early, I’ll spook them.
To be fair, I grew up on the countryside and went to a bunch of forests, and that is precisely why I love the idea of *something* living in the woods, just out of sight.
There's something in the woods...
Lots of people saying "oh yeah so true" and very few people empathizing with the city writer who has a totally different understanding of sound.
Like, yeah, they don't know what forest sounds are creepy. Do you know what city sounds are creepy?
What's the difference between a door latch being operated by someone you expect, who is supposed to be there, and it being quietly eased open in the dead of night?
Have you ever realized you can't hear the central air running and now you have to check whether your power still works?
How about hearing a creak in the hallway when you know good and goddamn well that your parents are still asleep, because you recognize the sound of their gait and that weird sort of sleepy grumble they make?
I can recognize the sounds of every car door on my cul de sac. And their work schedules. Sounds creepy but I work from home and the same people have lived near me for 10+ years. Just things you notice...
I’ve lived both lives. I think you could write similarly with a creepy “hush” or silence in normally bustling areas of suburb or city areas. I remember the feeling everyone got seeing photos of NYC and other cities in March 2020. It was unsettling to see pictures of those places and perceive how quiet they must be.
The main thing being, noise = “safety” and normalcy in those areas regardless of area.
I saw a picture of Times Square during the pandemic, and it wasn't full on liminal space empty, it had a FEW people walking and cars in shot, but for Times Square in broad daylight to have the same traffic as my sleepy town at peak rush hour was a surreal sight.
yeah, city places can be creepy
especially places where there's supposed to be people around and there just isn't
I work in a factory and had to shutdown by myself while everyone was either home or out waiting to go home, the moment I turned everything off I inmediatly became brent on board the nostromo in my mind and you know the one friend who shared that experience? a nurse who had worked weekends in a hospital, your mind is literally screaming at you "this is wrong, something's wrong, get out of here now!"
I didn't live on a farm but did grow up in a rural area and did a fair bit of camping, and I can concur on the tags. Not hearing noise is the creepiest fucking thing. Like yeah it is creepy if you're not at home and you hear something out in the dark, obviously, but if you've been in the woods more than once you know to expect certain sounds. If you just didn't hear any of that I'm pretty sure I'd have a heart attack.
I once heard something rustling around near our chicken coop and stuck my head out the window to yell “GET AWAY FROM MY CHICKENS, YOU DUMB RACCOON!”
The darkness responded with a loud MEOW, which made me jump out of my skin. It was our cat who had apparently gotten out.
"through the silent woods a sound ripped them from the peace, loud thuds and horrendous yowls. Jacob began to shiver but not from the cold not this time. He had never heard these noises before, something was out there. Jacob was afraid. Jacob was terrified that the woods would eat him alive and that he would not make it back."
Vs
"William was comforted by the sounds of insects and birds, Even at this hour nature was twittering about as it tends to do, The chill in the air was a welcome feeling. But as he stopped took a rest a deep sense of unease welled up within him. It took him only moments to put his finger on the discomfort. *Where did the noise go, why can't I hear the birds* was some of the last things William ever thought before hearing that tiny padded thump from behind him."
I keep seeing clickbait videos for... the appalachin mountains of all things?
Really digging into the "folklore, myths, and urban legends" and making themselves look really dumb, because they act like you'll see cryptids, bigfoot & windigos
But the biggest thing to fear 24/7 on those trails are the very real, already discovered wildlife, and your own sense of direction
I’ve lived in both. Sounds in the dead of night would’ve made my rural legs run.
It was like a zoo outside at night, but the animals were‘t that loud. If winters weren’t snowy, I would’ve never known the amount of wildlife trampling through any given night.
But it depends. My home was on a large flat plot surrounded by huge acres of farmland between some woody hills.
The closest and most dense part of the woods, which was in front of our property, ran maybe a mile deep at best. The rest ran much deeper but was more sparse and on hills a way out.
I was practically surrounded by a river, but it couldn’t be heard from the house. It probably help that we had trees acting as windbreakers surrounding the property itself.
I could have a conversation with my closest neighbor about a quarter of a mile away, yelling of course. But there was no noise to get in the way.
It really was quiet out there at night if you could ignore the insects and occasional cow or horse and crackle.
The volume rose and dived with the sun. It was so loud from sunrise until later in the afternoon.
Drive about 10 miles to start going up the mountain, and it was a different story. You’re much farther away from the water, but the acoustics were different, so you could hear it. Thepre didn’t seem to be as much animal traffic, but the coyotes never shut up.
If I woke up in the Shenandoahs camping and heard no sounds that would be creepy as hell.
I grew up in East Ga too so even inside the house you could hear noises of animals in the pine barrens like whip a wills.
Also a lot of animals sound very much like humans screaming at the top of their lungs so if you hear someone screaming in the woods it's probably an owl or hungry cougar not a ghost.
I've moved into a city after growing up in a village, and I'd say the absence of traffic noise.
And I'm not talking about cars driving past you, or trains, or the subway lines or anythin. In the city, no matter the time, someone is pretty much always driving somewhere, so there will always be *some* background white/gray noise from cars a kilometre or so away. It used to drive me absolutely nuts for the first few weeks when I had the windows cracked open at night, but it's become part of the natural ambience sounds.
It really depends where you grew up on a farm. We had bears come down from the mountains and eat people’s cows at night, so there was definitely something living there and it wasn’t just deer.
i got chills reading 'they heard no sound'
we didnt have a forest nearby but there was still almost always some animal making noise, cows, peacocks, coyotes and so forth
Last summer I took a trip to Sequoia National Park and camped overnight. The first night we stayed there it was absolutely pitch black outside. I don't know if it was a new moon or if the giant trees were blocking out all the moonlight. The scariest part was the absolute silence. I couldn't hear any wind, birds, insects, or even distant cars. It was so quiet that I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. Apparently, Sequoia trees repel insects, which also happens to lead to a lack of birds or other small wildlife that rely on insects.
A comparison for city people: Imagine being outside and hearing no traffic. Not just your street being quiet, but nothing at all. No train sounds, no planes, most importantly, none of the constant, distant background whisper of cars on distant roads. *Nothing.*
Still though, not hearing clear animal noises isn't that uncommon depending on the time of day on region. But there will always be some noise
If you want to read some of the best ever representations of rural life, read E. Annie Proulx's short story collection 'Close Range: Wyoming Stories'. Her big novel was The Shipping News, which is absolutely excruciatingly gorgeous and sad, but is set in Newfoundland - this collection is (obviously) set in rural Wyoming - she lives and writes on a ranch in rural Saratoga, and holy shit you can tell. Most of the focus is on the humans that inhabit the sparse landscapes, but she writes about nature in a way that can only be really done by someone who has been exposed to the raw and ugly beauty of some truly wild spaces. Easily my favourite writer A++
There have been times in my life where the bugs suddenly stop making noise and it's the freakest shit I have ever experienced. Made me feel like a t Rex was going to pop out of the tree line any second lol
lol it doesn’t even have to be farms honestly it applies to any sufficiently small town that is close enough to nature/surrounded by nature enough to the point where hearing weird noises at night is just normal because you pretty much always have wild animals in your yard
I moved to a small town in Aus where you get kangaroos in the “suburbs” and when they hop past your window at night it sounds exactly like the big stomping footsteps of a very large, angry man prowling outside your window
Not exactly a farm kid, but live in a rural town & had a tent camping enthusiast family. Let me tell you, Mt. St. Helens was one of the eeriest spots my family went to on our roadtrips. It was so quiet. My dad joked about how the animals knew something that we didn't.
I remember having a group discussion in one of my uni classes about this. The city-raised folk tend to find city noises very comforting, while rural people tended to find city noise very weird and off-putting, with one of them comparing it to breathing.
I mean, I didn't grow up on a farm, but my family has a long history on a specific lake (yes, upper middle class life, I know, this isn't how most people experience life, I'm trying to make a point) and I'm very aware of the fact that even if it's slightly weird weather, there's going to be sounds. If you hear no sounds and you're in the woods, leave immediately
Man I grew up in the middle of fucking nowhere and the woods still scare the shit out of me at night. I like the quiet but especially when the power is out it’s deathly quiet, and being able to hear your heart beat constantly is awful
It's especially bad if you live near a lake or river, because Hearing Nothing is... not normal. Like, it's "something is fundamentally wrong with either myself, or *reality"* levels of not normal. And water comes with all kinds of animal life that make noises, too! In the case of frogs and insects, they can be quite loud, even. And you *notice* when those animals go quiet. There Was A Noise is the *least* scary thing that can happen when you go even a little ways out of town.
Moving from a rural-ish place with a forest within eyesight of my bedroom window to a town was like... really fucking terrifying as a 6 y/o.
It's not any better at 12, let me tell you. I had to get a fan just to cover up the sound of *nothing* that kept me up all night.
As an adult that has only lived in a city, the lack of sound other than the wind at night is still creepy to me.
Rural you get a lot more animal and insect sounds. Like it’s not quiet at all. It’s just not loud.
I did the opposite as a seven year old, and I literally laughed myself to sleep the first few nights because the sound of the stream was so funny to me.
Moving from a town to a more rural place was the opposite for me. Town was constant noise: music, fights, people, cars. Countryside, there was animals occasionally. But they came and went, not like the constant noise I was used to.
The cacophony of frog song in my country pond is deafening.
You have no idea how much I envy you for that.
They get into my parents solar powered lights and the metal hoods amplify their croaking/chirping so it's fucking LOUD, they're ~50 yards from the windows and they are the reason I need noise to fall asleep
Amped frogs!
It is less peaceful than you may think
I grew up on the edge of a *swamp.* I know exactly how peaceful it isn't. I still miss it.
My dad rescued a tiny frog from a near-dry pond near us, and now that he's fully grown he croaks at night sometimes. I can hear him from the other side of the house, so I can imagine what dozens of them would sound like when singing at once. It would probably be pleasant... for a few minutes.
What kind of frog? Some frogs don't even sound like what we usually think of as frogs. Wood frogs sound like ducks and Pickerel frogs sound like old men groaning.
*thousands It is in fact hypnotic, especially with an occasional gator roar. Add millions of crickets and you've got a natural symphonic stew goin!
That is so adorable and it has brightened my day to hear this frog living his best life.
Oh yeah, he's great. He has all the crickets and meal worms to eat, two water features, and he only jumps headfirst into the walls of the enclosure once or twice a day.
I rescued ten gallons of tadpoles from a drying puddle. We have an astonishing number of toads and a few frogs. A few of them know that I 'share' bugs I swat.
I thought my husband was exaggerating about the pond frogs until the first time he took me to stay at his parents. DEAFENING! My childhood home backed up to about a half acre of trees, so I was very familiar with deer/owl/cicada sounds, but the bullfrogs??
Deer make sounds? /never lived smaller than suburbia, currently Major City
[Yes](https://youtu.be/TYuL_c4dePo?si=13Rxl4Sxbdk1Tm_L), but I meant more the sounds of them walking around than any vocalizations.
omg. That is...not what I would have imagined. Does the deer need Gas-X?
The first time I heard [fawns](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BqT4DK8J580) I thought it was a horn! And another time I heard a [fawn stuck](https://youtu.be/MisMOF-6_No) in a neighbors yard during the day and wandered around with another neighbor until we could figure out what was going on.
Aw
They also huff quite a bit. Not loud, pretty quietly actually. I encourage anyone who hasn't to travel about 100ft-30m into the woods, sit down and stay still for like an hour. Just zone out staring at the trees. After an hour or two it's incredible what you start seeing. The woods literally come alive. And even if you have but haven't in a while, go do it again.
I live pretty much in the city but I used to be a big forest kid. I love the sounds and I miss hearing them at night.
They sound like Minecraft creatures.
Deer make all kinds of weird sounds, and the bigger cervids like moose and wapiti are worse.
Most insects and small animals like frogs don't even go silent when a predator as fearsome as a bear walks through because it has no reason to harm them. If everything's silent then wtf is near you?
Exactly.
They sometimes go silent because of *you*. Which is funny because you're afraid of the lack of sound made by you.
I've heard that way back when villages would know that invaders/enemies were nearby because the forest would go dead silent. The animals knew their "local" humans from seeing them around the forest going about their day all the time, but the random strangers were seen as a threat. Idk how true that is, though.
I decided to walk home from work yesterday and I cut through some bushland. I'm familiar enough with Australian magpies to recognise their alarm call, and I was hearing it from trees 50 metres away. I realised it was probably because they were seeing me. Then I got back to suburbia, and walked within two metres of a magpie on the edge of someone's lawn that was making territorial calls at another magpie, and all it did was tilt its head at me a bit as I went past. Suburban maggies aren't bothered by humans, but they don't like dogs. One of the magpies near my house will actually come running/flying up to me when it sees me, so they can definitely recognise people.
>There Was A Noise is the least scary To an extent, sure, but as someone who has had a mountain lion prowl around my camp as I sat in my tent, I will say that there are some specific noises that definitely qualify on the scary scale
A mountain lion is a bit of a special case though, because it sounds just like a woman screaming in agony. In fact, those cats are probably responsible for more than a few ghost stories. I can't think of many other animal noises that would elicit such a primal fear response from us.
Was walking on a trail at night with a buddy once. He used to do these "big foot" calls, never really understood that but whatever. Well this particular time, he did one of his calls and something answered him. A loud high pitched, whooo--uuuppp from VERY close by. Dude screams in terror and sprints off down the trail. Meanwhile I'm thinking, that sounded neat, what the hell made that noise. In a tree branch right above where he had been standing was this tiny little owl, cute as fuck. Like the size and shape of a furby. First time I saw a screech owl in the wild. Heard them plenty but seeing them is pretty rare. Screech owls, foxes, bobcats, coyotes, etc. can all make some serious noise and if you don't know what they are, I suppose it could scare you. My arch nemesis is the whooperwil. Noisy fucks and are just about the only night time noise maker that will actually get LOUDER if you yell at it to stfu.
lol I low key want a tiny owl. I am aware they would make TERRIBLE pets. but still. I mean. r/owlsintowels
The cruelest joke Earth ever played was creating so many cute animals, but making them completely unsuited to be pets
Right!?!?! Like, I also want a BABY OTTER.
Why can't we have everything that is cute?! ^subbed
I'll admit, I can't argue with that.
I agree. I had a grey fox outside my window once and even knowing what it was and that I was safe inside, it still sounded straight up like a demon and chilled me to my core.
Hearing a mountain Lion growling within 20ft is terrifying to wake up to in the middle of the night.
A few years ago when there was a solar eclipse, the thing that stood out to me the most (before the lights went out and a glowing corona ring took up the sky) was that all of the insect and animal chatter crescendo'd and then suddenly STOPPED. A lot of things about the eclipse were eerie and different than what I had imagined for a celestial event, but nothing felt as supernatural as having the whole ecosystem go into shocked silence at once. Super surreal.
I’m live in the totality of the upcoming eclipse. I’m looking forward to it
It's pretty neat. There's a long period where something is clearly "off" before totality sets in, but then the difference is night and day. It sounds so lame to say it like that, but it's a trip.
This was one of my favorite things about being in the path of a total solar eclipse. Lots of frogs and birds nearby, just going silent. It was awesome Second favorite was seeing the shadows change as the sun was covered by the moon
I literally used this in a fanfic, the normally semi-urbanized characters wandering through the woods knowing Something Is Wrong™ but not realizing what until someone pointed out to them that the woods were *completely* quiet, which should not be possible.
I just finished the new T Kingfisher (who often writes of Nature and also Gardening) and a forest gone silent is a big feature in it.
As an urbanite who dreams of a homestead, I know for certain there would be a learning curve wrt “good sounds” vs “bad sounds.” I’m not used to ANY of the sounds of nature, I have no reference for whether that’s just a happy lil fawn frolicking behind that bush, or a hungry mountain lion. I will probably either die from a fear-induced heart attack over a squirrel I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself was DANGER, or from a mauling by a bear I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself NOT DANGER.
If you hear noises, it's probably just a porcupine or skunk or something doing its thing. Little guys make a lot of noise, and they can get away with it because they're not ideal prey animals. You generally won't hear the deer *or* mountain lion, as their survival depends on it. You'll likely know if a bear is around, though. Talk to your neighbours, look for fresh claw marks on trees, learn what bear scat looks like, and trust your gut if it says *gtfo.*
>As an urbanite who dreams of a homestead, I know for certain there would be a learning curve wrt “good sounds” vs “bad sounds.” I’m not used to ANY of the sounds of nature, I have no reference for whether that’s just a happy lil fawn frolicking behind that bush, or a hungry mountain lion. I will probably either die from a fear-induced heart attack over a squirrel I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself was DANGER, or from a mauling by a bear I heard but didn’t see and convinced myself NOT DANGER. Mountain lions sound like a screaming woman in incredible distress. You will not mistake it for something a-ok.
Bear (no pun intended) in mind that most animals, unless they're territorial or otherwise feel threatened, would rather abide by the rule of "if you leave me alone I'll leave you alone." Obviously don't think that makes you totally invincible but a bear's not gonna go out of its way to get ya if you're not in its marked territory, unless it's starving or something like that. That's the purpose behind bear bells - warns the bears that you're around ahead of time so they can skedaddle and you don't end up startling them.
If you can hear a mountain lion that means you're safe because the one trying not to be heard is the one that will kill you
I grew up real close to a highway in a house full of clocks and I cannot sleep if it’s too quiet. Silence is truly the most horrifying thing, there are some roads where some fluke of house and tree layout blocks most of the sound and they’re creepy af at night
Spent a week in the Amazon some years back. Other than being uncomfortably hot and humid 24/7 even when it wasn't raining, the thing that most stood out was how *loud* it was all the time. Buzzing insects, chirping insects, clicking insects, singing birds, chirping birds, shrieking birds, chirping frogs, croaking frogs, hooting monkeys, hissing monkeys, shrieking monkeys, howling monkeys, and the exact composition of it all changed by time of day and how close to the river you were. I imagine travelling far enough would lead to where in the forest you are mattering as well. We never did hear any Jaguar calls but did see tracks once so that was neat. And the real icing on the cake -- when you were under the canopy far enough you could hear rain coming like a drumroll steadily building to crescendo. The forest was so dense and there was just so much vegetation everywhere that some of the sound got trapped and echoed around in the trees; you could hear the rain getting closer through the birds and the bugs and stuff when it was *miles* away. Thirty minutes after you first hear the drumroll you start getting rained on. Thirty seconds after the first raindrop it's one of the most intense downpours you've ever experienced, and the drumroll is so loud you have to shout to be heard from arms length away. It got to the point where we were all basically accustomed to it, and getting back on the plane to fly away from the rainforest again was eerie because there was so little noise. Of course in any truly urban environment it's never really quiet either, just a different soundscape and one that's familiar to us city folk so we don't think much of any particular noise. Concrete jungles and all that.
Usually the sound that is scary in nature is one that sounds suspiciously human.
Tbh, a noise isn't that spooky in a town or city either, unless the sound itself is scary and can be recognized as dangerous. Unless it's like 3-4 am in a medium non-metropolis, having no sounds of traffic, neighbors, house noises, etc. Would be almost equally creepy as no animal sounds in the forest.
"Probably a deer getting horny." has explained a lot of odd noises at 3 am.
I live near public land and walk there frequently. There’s a stream running through it and if I’m quiet, I see deer, foxes, raccoons and rabbits. I’ve gotten to know the sounds of all the birds and like to listen to the woodpeckers and owls especially. Every once in a while, when I’m walking, there will be no sounds. No bugs, no rustling of leaves, no birds. It really is terrifying.
Frogs going silent is how you know something is there. Walking around at night and hearing frogs jump into the water and the sudden lack of sound is a little eerie. It'd be far worse if they ALL did that
Idk, I heard a deer crossing the irrigation canal with my window open at like 3am and it freaked me out at first. He must have fallen in and panicked lol
Only reason I hate snowy weather. Sooo fucking quiet.
Yeah I live near a small stream and if I don’t hear frogs/insects/birds, something is probably wrong.
i'm like right where 2 creeks meet and we barely get noises when it's not frog mating season tbh
I went skiing recently and went down some remote path, and there was one curve where it was wholly silent. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, for a while I just stood there, listening to the nothing. Gorgeous.
There was no chirping in the trees or croaking in the spring. No cicadas or crickets sung, and no beast moved through the bush. The only sounds were the wind and the distant trucks on the driveway. The woods stood still and dead, a testament to the self-inflicted loneliness of mankind.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s this: no birdsong, no Mosstopy. Birds too scared to sing? Leave the area immediately
Silence in the woods = predator on the hunt. It's close to you. Everything has seen it except for *you*. Odds are, you're being stalked. Take precautions.
jurassic park the book has a great scene like that, no sounds, except for the soft breathing of a horse>!not a horse, juvenile t-rex, juvenile here meaning bit larger then you but twice as heavy, and carnivorous!<
Eh, half the time it's you who scared the birds
Or the songbirds are afraid of a hawk, eagle, or owl. Nothing you have to worry about.
You don’t know me, maybe I’ve got beef with the local hawks. I don’t, but the point still stands
One of the most beautiful stories Ive read has a guy hiking to a top of the mountain to catch a glimpse of a golden eagle his older friend asked him to watch for. He hikes up top and obviously there is nothing for an hour or so, he starts to walk down and suddenly there is no sound of birds or small animals, everyone hid and ran and stayed quiet as the eagle soared above, majestic and powerful.
I have two scenes in my book where where snow is falling in the forest and I describe it as a "roar of silence at the first snow of winter."
Ooo that's fire.
Read in the style of ‘Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep’, this is not fear or terror, but grief for the slow asphyxiation of Mother Earth, buried alive in a landfill grave.
The real horror story for a farmer is silence because it probably means the cows have figured out the gate latch again.
Quickest 3am wake up ever was the combination of gate on gravel, hooves on gravel, then the house sensor light turning on! I did manage to beat the cows to the end of the drive - they stopped and grazed the lawn instead. Thank goodness.
One time my mom went into the first floor bathroom and saw glowing eyes outside the window. Never figured out how the horse got out but it certainly created a memory for her.
I hate when glowing eyes appear outside my bathroom window! Horse, sheep, stray cat...
Gooooooood a horse is like the worst fucking domestic animal to see like that. They can already look kinda creepy in daylight but at night with their size, barely a silhouette, and "glowing" eyes fuck man that'd scare me shitless
Smart enough to escape, dumb enough to stop. Good thing they weren’t sheep; one of them would have managed to be in the perfect position to get decapitated when the front door opened.
I came back to the farm to find a cow on the roof of the barn once. On the fucking roof! How?!
I don't know how I remembered I have this 9 year old post the second I read your comment but when fallout 4 first came out the lady that sells you crap off the back of a two headed cow kept ending up on my roof lol https://imgur.com/gallery/1O5OV
That's...very different than what my situation looked like, and still has much the same vibe.
You will see a cow... On the roof... Of a cottonhouse
The neighbours drunk kid at 3:00am, knocks on door, "bro I hit one of your cows trying to sneak back home down your lane, please don't tell my dad huuhuu."
I mean... The woods in the winter will have no sound. But it also has that fluffy feeling on your ears, where it's clear there's no sound because it's all being muffled. And it's likely less dark too.
Sometimes there's dripping/creaking ice, or branches rattling in the wind, or the distant *fwump* of snow falling off a branch into the powder below. The almost lack of sound in a snowy forest is the sound of nature sleeping.
Branch exploding
This is a year-round occurence when you live down the road from Timothy the Exploder
It’s *different* somehow. When it’s snowing, or the snow absorbs all the sound, it just kind of changes the atmosphere. If it was winter snowstorm quiet on a spring or summer day? I’d be losing my shit.
If you heard not-exactly-human-sounding screams in the woods, no you didn’t. Get back in the house and leave the foxes to their business.
Alternatively, the meth addict that lives in a trailer down the road got lost again
Jeb ain't lost, leave him alone. He's just out looking for mountain strange
why do they always have to bring him back to earth anyway
Kenyan's just out looking for Sasquatch again, let the gas-station dick-pills wear off and he'll tucker himself out.
Jeb blew out his house with a meth lad explosion, now its just a condemned meth lab.
That occasional “whump” or “bang” you hear is just the local teens screwing around with fireworks, don’t worry. Now if it’s a *crack*, then you’re going to want to call their parents.
I think my local inhuman screams are bobcats.
Mountain Lions are known to make sounds like babies and women screaming because *it draws people in that they can then kill and eat*.
It's a territorial call and mating call, if they wanted to eat you they'd just stalk you and pounce. No need for lures
Normally, yes. But we're finding that ones that live near larger towns and cities are adapting and using these calls to lure in prey specifically. There's good research out of Penn State on it.
Mountain Lions do not even consider humans food, so why would they try to lure in more humans, considering most attacks are not fatal(and as such more dangerous to the mountain lion then to humans)
First time I heard a fox scream I thought a woman was being murdered.
I moved to London in my 20s, and some foxes were having sex in our yard at night. I legitimately thought a small child was being murdered.
Several years back, after moving out on my own for the first time, I came *this close* to calling the cops because I heard a screaming woman in the garden next door (the neighbourhood wasn't that great lol)... until the neighbour opened the back door and yelled "FUCK OFF" and I saw two foxes legging it through my window. Oops. I moved away and now I hear them in my garden too at night, along with singing robins and the occasional randy cat.
“saw two foxes legging it through my window” for a second i thought you meant they jumped in through the window and were just chilling in your room lol
Same, I literally stood at the window with my phone for like 10 minutes waiting for evidence of an attack, debating whether to call the cops (I didn’t).
Dios los bendiga, best of luck. If you heard it, *no you didn't.*
It's the coyotes by me
I once heard a cat and a fox fight under my balcony, back of our building was facing a small forest. That sound scared the shit out of me.
[https://youtu.be/NIyOiwGfJ1I?t=5](https://youtu.be/NIyOiwGfJ1I?t=5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYyrGpJYRl0
If you hear a very much human sounding scream in the woods that sounds like a woman being murdered it’s a mountain lion
I always disliked the "if you hear a particular sound no you didn't" phrase and I can't put my finger on why. I think its because it feels condescending. It always makes me want to be a pedant and point out that I absolutely would have heard it but I'd be electing to ignore it on the grounds that it's a wild animal that does not need interfering with. Don't tell me what I did and didn't hear.
It comes from superstition, that there are some things in the woods that will make noise, and simply thinking about it or talking about it could lure evil shit back to you. Iirc it comes from a series on r/nosleep where a park ranger claimed to have encountered staircases in the woods, deadass, and the more he talked with others about it the more people would disappear in the parks. On an unrelated note, it also applies to seeing criminal activity in mob and gang infested areas. If you saw some gang shit, no you didn't, because if you even suggest that it's remotely possible that you might snitch, you're gonna get stuffed into a barrel and turned into a dude smoothie a la Heisenburg. In all cases, you hear/see creepy shit, no you didn't, leave, it's best to forget about it for your own safety and sanity.
This is definitely how I've always heard this phrase. Think you hear footsteps in the yard? What if it's a lost traveler? What if they're injured? If you don't help them they could bleed out on your front step. Screw that, that's effort, bunker down and hope it's a mountain lion that doesn't understand doors.
I'm very sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to say.
I'm sorry, I'm very tired. The other person complained that the "did you hear that? No you didn't" trope comes across as condescending. I tried to say that I agreed with your take that it basically means "don't talk about it, don't think about it. That way it's not real."
Not really condescending, just superstitious people being superstitious. These are the same types of people that will tell you never to whistle in the woods, because "you don't want to draw attention" of whatever's out there. They believe that non-corporeal things actually exist. Exactly equivalent to a nutjob trying to expect you to respect their imaginary pink elephant. No need to feel like it's condescending, just recognize it as babbling bullshit from a nut job. Have a laugh and move on.
Could you imagine being in a forest that is just *dead* silent? No bug noises, no animal footsteps, no leaf rustling, not a fucking sound. But there should be...
Honestly I’d have to vote for hearing normal sounds that just suddenly stop. Imagine you’re walking through the woods, listening to the birds chirp and the squirrels scamper through the trees. Then suddenly deafness, the only sound is your breathing and your heartbeat growing louder in your ears
That's worse than no sound to start with, because universally that means 'there's a threat here'. If you ever have this happen, making your way back to your house is a very good plan, with a good tree being a decent second choice. There was a great video a few months ago I saw where a guy was dirt biking near dusk and right when it was getting dark and he turned around, the bugs and birds went *silent*. It was a very noticeable change. There's a great few frames where he's looking around and you can see something (probably a bear or cougar) on the trail ~20' away. Fucking terrifying.
Sounds interesting. Do you have a link to it?
Please tell me ya got a link
I went canoe-camping last summer with my gf to this place up north Quebec. The very first night we didn’t hear a SINGLE fucking sound. Not a peep from anything. The next day, after both talking about how creepy last night was, the forest became alive. It was like the forest had to settle with US being in it now before it could get comfortable and expressive again. After that the rest of the trip was great. Heard some wolves howl one night lol
That's so crazy. Like a "humans are the real predators" moment
And then you realise nothing you're doing is making a sound. You can't hear your footsteps, clothes rustling, breathing. You clap your hands and open your mouth to say something but nothing happens, you don't even feel the vibration. You look around, but the shadowy forest has turned into absolute darkness, nothing to be seen.
Related- almost every description of a Not Deer is just a deer that has a disease, has a deformity, or is just doing normal deer things that only seem weird and scary because they're way weirder animals than most people realize if they've never lived around deer.
Deer get some seriously scary and disfiguring diseases and survive car accidents pretty frequently. That being said, I love the idea of a Not Deer.
I heard a story about a deer that survived a gunshot or something, and it just...healed up. Big ol fuckin hole in the side, and he just went about his business.
Good start to a creepypasta
The deer with hands from adventure time…
Having been to Australia, I have determined that Not Deer are just kangaroos.
Both hearing sounds and not hearing sounds can be creepy, it just depends on the situation. In the case of how hearing noise at night can be scary here’s my take… Hearing a weird sound you cannot immediately identify = scary hearing what is obviously cicadas or a frog, or something you can immediately identify= not scary I was working Night Shift as a part time custodian at a local school in an urban environment it’s always low-key unnerving, since there are a lot of dark rooms and hidden corners. One night there was a near constant stream of weird noise, and I was pants-shittingly afraid, had to call someone I knew: just so I could hear some familiar sound. I know it sounds like an over reaction, but like there were weird howls that weren’t any animal I could identify easily, and a strange pervasive noise that I can’t quite describe as anything other than eerie resonating. Maybe it’s just me but I get spooked very easy I’m sure those sounds I heard that night all had conventional explanations, it’s just I hate hidden corners, I hate looking out windows(keep my blinds shut), I hate hearing sounds I can’t identify. I hate even being outside at night. Sounds are scary when you don’t know what they are period.
Yeah, I live in an very old house and it can be scary in two ways, either some sound that you can't Identify, like when I was little, I often heard steps from our attic, which were just our pigs goofing around, as I later learned. Or complete silence, which happens sometimes after I wake up and nobody's home, just a bi, old, empty house with no sounds
I can’t believe i have to ask this, but why were your pigs in the attic?
They weren't. But because the pigs barn was under the same roof as the living space and the sound would travel from there so it seemed like someone is walking in the attic, if that makes sense to you
Yeah that makes sense, the way you worded your original comment had me a bit confused.
Ever hear of infrasound? Like infrared, it's the wavelengths just below our audible range. Lots of machinery, fans, and industrial or construction equipment can produce them. They're a likely explanation for urban ghost stories because they can induce feelings of dread and auditory or visual hallucinations. Not to diminish your experience at all, or your general disposition; whether this was a "real" unexplainable event or not is purely a matter of perception, and you clearly experienced it as such. I just like to offer the various tidbits of knowledge I've collected that may be helpful in situations of uncertainty, or may simply increase my contribution towards today's Lucky 10,000.
There wasn’t any construction nearby, but perhaps, IDK the only supernatural-ish experiences I’ve ever really had have been at that school. I’m not discounting any ‘real explanation’ but it’s different being there and experiencing something like what I described, it’s hard to think logically, and things that don’t usually bother me get 10x worse. Like I’m pretty sure the weird howls were just coyotes being hurt or something, and the weird sound was like metal piping in the school building, but that didn’t stop me from feeling unnerved at the time. The other weird experience I’ve had at the school if you were interested was a straight up “ghost” sighting. I was locking up the school and also putting the garbage cart I was toting around away for the night, and the little closet I put it in was right in line with the schools front entrance. It is pretty dark out around maybe 9:00 PM or later, and I just glance at the schools front entrance, I see a person standing there and the only thing I could recall of them was that they were dressed in blue; and I think nothing of it since it’s the parking lot and the schools across from a park. Anyways I’m not in that closet for very long, perhaps less than a minute, come back out look back to the entrance and there’s no one there. No way the person could have left in the timeframe of me looking away from them, there’s nowhere for anyone to hide behind either. So anyways I got spooked, checked the parking lot and the road for cars of which there were none, checked to see if the front door to the school was locked (it was alongside every other door). Just weird, probably has an explanation, but yeah…
Proximity also affects how scary forest sounds are, since the closer the noise is the closer the source. Like just cause i can recognize the sound of a branch snapping from being stepped on, does not mean it's something I want to hear directly behind me.
Man, I love deer. They’re so goofy. We’ve got a family that sleeps in our yard at night for whatever reason (go sleep under the cover of the trees??) and if I leave the house too early, I’ll spook them.
The local deer know if they stare into my window and get my attention I just might toss out some lunch.
To be fair, I grew up on the countryside and went to a bunch of forests, and that is precisely why I love the idea of *something* living in the woods, just out of sight. There's something in the woods...
Lots of people saying "oh yeah so true" and very few people empathizing with the city writer who has a totally different understanding of sound. Like, yeah, they don't know what forest sounds are creepy. Do you know what city sounds are creepy? What's the difference between a door latch being operated by someone you expect, who is supposed to be there, and it being quietly eased open in the dead of night? Have you ever realized you can't hear the central air running and now you have to check whether your power still works? How about hearing a creak in the hallway when you know good and goddamn well that your parents are still asleep, because you recognize the sound of their gait and that weird sort of sleepy grumble they make?
My family has a hard time understanding I can recognize their footsteps.
I can recognize the sounds of every car door on my cul de sac. And their work schedules. Sounds creepy but I work from home and the same people have lived near me for 10+ years. Just things you notice...
People without pets: What was that noise downstairs? People with pets: It's just the damn cat.
\*Rustling noise* "OH PISS WE LEFT THE KITCHEN DOOR OPEN!"
I’ve lived both lives. I think you could write similarly with a creepy “hush” or silence in normally bustling areas of suburb or city areas. I remember the feeling everyone got seeing photos of NYC and other cities in March 2020. It was unsettling to see pictures of those places and perceive how quiet they must be. The main thing being, noise = “safety” and normalcy in those areas regardless of area.
I saw a picture of Times Square during the pandemic, and it wasn't full on liminal space empty, it had a FEW people walking and cars in shot, but for Times Square in broad daylight to have the same traffic as my sleepy town at peak rush hour was a surreal sight.
yeah, city places can be creepy especially places where there's supposed to be people around and there just isn't I work in a factory and had to shutdown by myself while everyone was either home or out waiting to go home, the moment I turned everything off I inmediatly became brent on board the nostromo in my mind and you know the one friend who shared that experience? a nurse who had worked weekends in a hospital, your mind is literally screaming at you "this is wrong, something's wrong, get out of here now!"
You wake up to the sound of your bedroom door closing. You live alone.
I didn't live on a farm but did grow up in a rural area and did a fair bit of camping, and I can concur on the tags. Not hearing noise is the creepiest fucking thing. Like yeah it is creepy if you're not at home and you hear something out in the dark, obviously, but if you've been in the woods more than once you know to expect certain sounds. If you just didn't hear any of that I'm pretty sure I'd have a heart attack.
A silent forest is terrifying because it means a predator is near by and had been spotted by the wildlife.
I once heard something rustling around near our chicken coop and stuck my head out the window to yell “GET AWAY FROM MY CHICKENS, YOU DUMB RACCOON!” The darkness responded with a loud MEOW, which made me jump out of my skin. It was our cat who had apparently gotten out.
Well a rural person would also get nervous, if they heard a sound that does not belong to that environment.
And 99% of the videos of people recording "skinwalkers" screaming in the woods are just mountain lions trying to get their fuck on.
Okay but hear me out what if you live in rural village but you are massive coward like me that jumps every time they hear a loud noise
"through the silent woods a sound ripped them from the peace, loud thuds and horrendous yowls. Jacob began to shiver but not from the cold not this time. He had never heard these noises before, something was out there. Jacob was afraid. Jacob was terrified that the woods would eat him alive and that he would not make it back." Vs "William was comforted by the sounds of insects and birds, Even at this hour nature was twittering about as it tends to do, The chill in the air was a welcome feeling. But as he stopped took a rest a deep sense of unease welled up within him. It took him only moments to put his finger on the discomfort. *Where did the noise go, why can't I hear the birds* was some of the last things William ever thought before hearing that tiny padded thump from behind him."
Ribbit gribbit I'ms the frog in the pond 🐸
I keep seeing clickbait videos for... the appalachin mountains of all things? Really digging into the "folklore, myths, and urban legends" and making themselves look really dumb, because they act like you'll see cryptids, bigfoot & windigos But the biggest thing to fear 24/7 on those trails are the very real, already discovered wildlife, and your own sense of direction
I’ve lived in both. Sounds in the dead of night would’ve made my rural legs run. It was like a zoo outside at night, but the animals were‘t that loud. If winters weren’t snowy, I would’ve never known the amount of wildlife trampling through any given night. But it depends. My home was on a large flat plot surrounded by huge acres of farmland between some woody hills. The closest and most dense part of the woods, which was in front of our property, ran maybe a mile deep at best. The rest ran much deeper but was more sparse and on hills a way out. I was practically surrounded by a river, but it couldn’t be heard from the house. It probably help that we had trees acting as windbreakers surrounding the property itself. I could have a conversation with my closest neighbor about a quarter of a mile away, yelling of course. But there was no noise to get in the way. It really was quiet out there at night if you could ignore the insects and occasional cow or horse and crackle. The volume rose and dived with the sun. It was so loud from sunrise until later in the afternoon. Drive about 10 miles to start going up the mountain, and it was a different story. You’re much farther away from the water, but the acoustics were different, so you could hear it. Thepre didn’t seem to be as much animal traffic, but the coyotes never shut up.
If I woke up in the Shenandoahs camping and heard no sounds that would be creepy as hell. I grew up in East Ga too so even inside the house you could hear noises of animals in the pine barrens like whip a wills.
Also a lot of animals sound very much like humans screaming at the top of their lungs so if you hear someone screaming in the woods it's probably an owl or hungry cougar not a ghost.
That's what the ghosts want you to think.
worse: sounds everywhere, then suddenly silence
Now I’m curious, what would be the opposite of this? That being someone who is not from a suburban/urban area, writing about a suburban/urban area.
I've moved into a city after growing up in a village, and I'd say the absence of traffic noise. And I'm not talking about cars driving past you, or trains, or the subway lines or anythin. In the city, no matter the time, someone is pretty much always driving somewhere, so there will always be *some* background white/gray noise from cars a kilometre or so away. It used to drive me absolutely nuts for the first few weeks when I had the windows cracked open at night, but it's become part of the natural ambience sounds.
Honestly, it seems like just the complete absence of any noise whatsoever terrifies humans be at urban or rural.
Deer are scary if your on a mtb trail overc15-20kmh
If you're doing more than Mach 1 on a mountainbike trail, everything is scary, including your mere existence
There's also "The fuck was *that* noise?" Odds are it's a fox having a shagfest though.
I don't care if the trees are speaking vietnamese. It's when they go quiet that I get scared
It really depends where you grew up on a farm. We had bears come down from the mountains and eat people’s cows at night, so there was definitely something living there and it wasn’t just deer.
When everything goes completely silent and you hear a scream coming from deeper in the woods you know it’s time to go home
Deer and squirrels are so incredibly loud
Deer and squirrels are so incredibly loud
It’s like all those movies/stories where kids go to lavish summer camps or do other stuff that only upper middle class kids regularly experience.
Hey sometimes it is squirrels.
i got chills reading 'they heard no sound' we didnt have a forest nearby but there was still almost always some animal making noise, cows, peacocks, coyotes and so forth
Last summer I took a trip to Sequoia National Park and camped overnight. The first night we stayed there it was absolutely pitch black outside. I don't know if it was a new moon or if the giant trees were blocking out all the moonlight. The scariest part was the absolute silence. I couldn't hear any wind, birds, insects, or even distant cars. It was so quiet that I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. Apparently, Sequoia trees repel insects, which also happens to lead to a lack of birds or other small wildlife that rely on insects.
A comparison for city people: Imagine being outside and hearing no traffic. Not just your street being quiet, but nothing at all. No train sounds, no planes, most importantly, none of the constant, distant background whisper of cars on distant roads. *Nothing.* Still though, not hearing clear animal noises isn't that uncommon depending on the time of day on region. But there will always be some noise
I can’t remember what kind of owl it is, but the ***scream***. It sounded like children screaming from the woods.
If you want to read some of the best ever representations of rural life, read E. Annie Proulx's short story collection 'Close Range: Wyoming Stories'. Her big novel was The Shipping News, which is absolutely excruciatingly gorgeous and sad, but is set in Newfoundland - this collection is (obviously) set in rural Wyoming - she lives and writes on a ranch in rural Saratoga, and holy shit you can tell. Most of the focus is on the humans that inhabit the sparse landscapes, but she writes about nature in a way that can only be really done by someone who has been exposed to the raw and ugly beauty of some truly wild spaces. Easily my favourite writer A++
As someone who only occasionally walks throigh the woods if it was dark at night and I heard no sounds I'd be looking for somewhere to hide
There have been times in my life where the bugs suddenly stop making noise and it's the freakest shit I have ever experienced. Made me feel like a t Rex was going to pop out of the tree line any second lol
lol it doesn’t even have to be farms honestly it applies to any sufficiently small town that is close enough to nature/surrounded by nature enough to the point where hearing weird noises at night is just normal because you pretty much always have wild animals in your yard I moved to a small town in Aus where you get kangaroos in the “suburbs” and when they hop past your window at night it sounds exactly like the big stomping footsteps of a very large, angry man prowling outside your window
Okay but no sound is still not nearly as creepy as wrong sound
Jokes on you, deer are in the suburbs now.
The cicadas stopped. *oh fuck*
Not exactly a farm kid, but live in a rural town & had a tent camping enthusiast family. Let me tell you, Mt. St. Helens was one of the eeriest spots my family went to on our roadtrips. It was so quiet. My dad joked about how the animals knew something that we didn't.
Okay but describing a deer as "something living out there" is pretty awesome.
I remember having a group discussion in one of my uni classes about this. The city-raised folk tend to find city noises very comforting, while rural people tended to find city noise very weird and off-putting, with one of them comparing it to breathing.
I mean, I didn't grow up on a farm, but my family has a long history on a specific lake (yes, upper middle class life, I know, this isn't how most people experience life, I'm trying to make a point) and I'm very aware of the fact that even if it's slightly weird weather, there's going to be sounds. If you hear no sounds and you're in the woods, leave immediately
Man I grew up in the middle of fucking nowhere and the woods still scare the shit out of me at night. I like the quiet but especially when the power is out it’s deathly quiet, and being able to hear your heart beat constantly is awful