SUBSCRIBE | NEWSLETTERS | MAPS | VIDEOS | BLOGS | MARKETPLACE | CONTESTS
Share your tales of travel & adventure with our step-by-step guide. Upload trail descriptions, photos, video, and more. Get Started

Backpacker Magazine – October 2005

Tell a Great Ghost Story: How to Scare People and Win Friends

Wouldn't it be cool if you could turn your friends into mewling, terrified--I mean, wouldn't it be cool to be able to tell a great ghost story on your next camping trip? Here's how.

by: Steve Friedman

(Photo by Anthony Cerretani)
(Photo by Anthony Cerretani)
TERROR IN THE TREES
Read one of the scariest stories ever told right here.

1. PICK A GOOD TALE Does it creep you out? Would your friends object if you told it to their 11-year-old kid? Yes? Then you’ve got a winner. Still unsure where to find the perfect tale? Ask every person you know who’s ever been to summer camp what the scariest story he or she has ever heard. Then make it your own.

2. TELL A TRUE STORY “This is a true story” is okay. “This is a true story and the person who it happened to is in the Maine hospital for the criminally insane now, a total vegetable” is better. “Cable news hadn’t been invented then, but you can look it up on microfilm at the Mendocino Public Library” is the best. When’s the last time anyone actually looked up something on microfilm?

3. KEEP IT SUBTLE
When the story gets to the really, really, really scary part, clam up. You don’t want to go on. Your voice gets softer. You’d prefer not to talk about what happened next. You don’t even want to think about it. But you will. You owe it to your audience.

4. USE VISUAL AIDS
Your appendectomy scar? Who’s to say Neville Flange, the machete-wielding marauder of the Smoky Mountains, didn’t cut you there? Hold on to bandanas with camp names: They’re priceless.

5.BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO Scary stories are fun, and thrilling, but told to the wrong person, at the wrong time—well, sometimes that can have tragic consequences. I was telling the story of the Mendocino Moaner a few years ago to friends on a weekend trip to Yosemite. Everyone was pretty freaked out—especially because it was a true story—but nothing happened that night, and we all woke up the next day refreshed and ready to hike. All except for my friend Jack. Who knows how it affected him, or why? All I know is that Jack wouldn’t say a word that morning. All he would do was hum and shake his head and wave his arms, which was really a drag, because we had to drive all the way to Reno, where we were going to catch a plane. They wouldn’t let Jack on the plane back to New York City, though. He was grunting and waving his arms. We had to take him to the Fresno County Hospital. Eventually they transferred him. To the Nevada State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It’s been five years and Jack’s still at the asylum. I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t even like to think about it.
Subscribe to Backpacker magazine
Sign up for our free weekly e-newsletter
Reader Rating: -

READERS COMMENTS

i have had stuff happen to me and my friends we were in the bathroom at our school and we heard footsteps so we ran out. later we went back in there with my friends and one brought there DSi and we recored questions and when we listened to them later we heard something. when i said whats your name it said hannah then we learned that a family died on the property and we also learned that there last name was huffstetler so is there something here tell us your opinion.
Posted: Nov 02, 2009 leighann

Scary stories can be fun and the dark outdoors can make it more that way. But be aware of your audience and be smart about it. A wise Scout Camp Director warned us staffers that ghost stories can have the effect of scaring a kid out of the woods - for good. He pointed out that was the opposite of what we were trying to accomplish.
I remembered this after my daughter begged to go home on our first night out on a recent backpacking trip. Evidentally, a couple weeks prior, her camp counselors scared the wits out of the girls in their cabin one night. (You know, the old 'escaped convict story', the power shuts off and another counselor outside scares everybody...a classic prank. Only they drew it out way too long and made it too interactive). Needless to say, it was a long night. How many of our friends & family don't go backpacking with us simply because somebody scared them to death?
Posted: Oct 29, 2009 Steve

one time my brother took a picture outside of kpt and then when he took it we look at it and there was one man looking at 15 floor .He only had his head and we still have the picture. that really freak me out
Posted: Jul 10, 2009 maria

But Mark, not everybody knows that, so to those of us who don't, all those details and names just makes it more real.
Posted: Oct 31, 2008 Genny

Very funny.

Mark from Oct 30th, might be one of those mentioned in #5.

Have a Happy Holloween!
Posted: Oct 31, 2008 Brad


Posted: Oct 31, 2008 Brad

Nothing better than a great imagination and the love of scaring people.
Posted: Oct 31, 2008 Hugh

very funny! especially the end. gave me quite a giggle. thanks.
Posted: Oct 31, 2008 cybibear

Lol. Very good. But, from Fresno County Hospital to the Nevada State Hospital for the Criminally Insane? Quite a jump for someone who lives in New York, who went to a California hospital, going to a hospital for criminally insane in another state. Good story, but you should probably keep it simple. People don't go to state hospitals for criminally insane unless the commit a crime and are court ordered to go there. And, they wouldn't go from one state to another state's hospital, unless he lived in the other state.
Posted: Oct 30, 2008 mark

ADD A COMMENT

Your Name:

Comment:

My Profile Join Now

Most recent threads

Gear
Boots: go with what I know
Posted On: Feb 09, 2010
Submitted By: SmokeyBear
Trailhead Register
R.I.P., Olyhiker
Posted On: Feb 09, 2010
Submitted By: MtnManByDay
Gear Finder

Find the Outdoor Equipment You Need

Find a retailer

Special sections - Expert handbooks for key trails, techniques and gear

BACKPACKER Food & Recipe Center
The ultimate trail-ready archive for all your recipe needs.

GearFinder
Find all the outdoor equipment you need. Columbia logo

Photo & Video Center
Essential gear, instruction, and more.

Backpacker's Gadget Guide 2009
Pathfinder logo The latest gadgets for technophobes, technogeeks, and everyone in between.

YES! Please send me my 2 FREE trial issues of BACKPACKER
and my FREE digital Survival Skills 101

Your subscription includes the FREE digital Survival Skills 101 – a guide with everything you'll need to get out of trouble fast!
NAME
ADDRESS
ADDRESS 2
CITY
STATE
ZIP CODE
EMAIL (req)

If I like it and decide to continue, I'll pay just $12 and receive a full one-year subscription (9 issues in all), a 73% savings off the newsstand price! If for any reason I decide not to continue, I'll write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing.

SUBMIT MY ORDER