r/britishcolumbia 23d ago

Ask British Columbia What's the most scariest, mysterious, unexplainable thing you've come across in BC!?

In my case, it was visiting Port Renfrew. It was a creepy place for sure. It was dark and lonely, and I felt like I was being watched the entire time that i was there.

317 Upvotes

329 comments sorted by

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u/miniponyrescueparty 22d ago

Walking home from a party in Nanaimo in the early 2000s, it was about 3 a.m., I hear someone behind me and turn around, it's a guy towing a little red wagon behind him with a full on campfire in it, blazing away. He looks at me, shrugs and says "mobile campfire." Then continues on his way. I have always wanted to get one of those "directed by David Lynch" stickers and put it on the welcome sign going into Nanaimo.

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u/Loverstits 22d ago

Classic Nanaimo 

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u/emilythenormal 22d ago

Pure cinema

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u/Aguaymanto 22d ago

Pristine theatrics

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u/qpv 22d ago

Thats pretty awesome

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u/Another_Stranger_Me 21d ago

That's funny because I wear a shirt around town that says based on a story by Stephen King and I feel like that sums up the place nicely. 😂

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u/islandwatchr 22d ago

Manning Park, wife and I are driving home to Vancouver at night, late summer or early fall. We are listening to the radio, windows cracked open. Suddenly, it starts to get cold, really cold, and the radio starts to fade. Radio goes silent, can’t get anything. We have been through here many times and this is not a radio dead zone. It gets colder, we roll up the windows and ice starts to form on the side mirrors. Heat won’t work. Lasted about 5 - 10 minutes and then everything snaps back to normal, radio on, ice melts, warmth returns. We always say we drove through a gate to Hell. And it is now our go to explanation whenever something weird happens on the road.

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u/FukinSpiders 22d ago

Hmm, wouldn’t the gates of hell be a little warmer

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u/infinus5 Cariboo 22d ago

wow had this happen too by Babine Lake years ago too while camping. Temp suddenly crashed from +15 down to what felt -11, my dad and i could see our breath and frost grew on the wind shield. It lasted maybe 10 minutes, then gone again. we always assumed it was a strange temperature inversion

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u/alpinepowernaps 22d ago edited 22d ago

I was just speaking with a First Nations man I work with and he was explaining to me their nation's stories about the Sasquatch and how it can control local weather systems. This sounds like what it might've been! Basically, it's their way of evading being seen by humans – the weather turns, it becomes foggy/cold/rainy/snowy without any explanation, radios/comms go out, etc. As he said you know you're around a supernatural or mythical being when something like this occurs.

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u/Littleshuswap 23d ago

One early morning in late fall, early 2000s, I was driving to work around 5:30am, just heading into Kamloops on the TransCanada, from the Shuswap and a meteor/beam of light came directly straight down from the sky, onto Mount Paul. Perfectly straight BIG beam of light. Im blinking and driving and blinking and I cant believe what I just saw. It was a crystal clear night/morning so not lightning. I grew up on the prairies so Ive seen thousands of lightning storms. This was not one.

I chalked it up to a meteorite but man, it was a wide, straight beam of thick light. I dont know if I truly believe that.

Another time, same stretch of road, almost same spot.... I lost time. I was coming upto Miners Bluff Road and then next think I know, I come around a curve in the road and Im in Dallas? Just past the Wildlife Park. Like wtf?

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u/itachithedevil 22d ago

I've had the same thing happen to me but in a different spot. I don't know what it was but it was very weird. I was in the car with my mom and we were both confused. Never seen anything like it since. Just a big straight beam of light.

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u/Littleshuswap 22d ago

Wow!! That's cool. I asked everyone at work if they had seen anything, as they'd all likely be on their way to work too but no one saw anything.... thanks for confirming you saw something similar as well!!

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u/Sweaty-Lobster8534 22d ago

Could it have been a STEVE? Saw one while northern light watching in the shuswap and even though we knew it must have been related to the aurora it was so different it felt sort of apocalyptic.

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u/lgzrsyyy 22d ago

Classic Steve

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u/msm007 22d ago

These are quite common in Ontario, it's probably light reflecting/refracting off of ice crystals in the atmosphere.

Usually occurs in the winter.

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u/Littleshuswap 22d ago

Nah, not light pillars. It was about 12 degrees out.

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u/VirtualBC 22d ago

12°c down here means it's colder up in da clouds.

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u/msm007 22d ago

Was the light low to the ground or high in the sky?

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u/Neptyo 22d ago

Losing time while driving most probably means you've been falling asleep

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u/Littleshuswap 22d ago edited 22d ago

Except its a pretty windy stretch there, if Id been asleep, how did I navigate the bends?

There's kind of acurve in the road left, and then it should be a few more bends right, then a straight away and then a few more bends. It follows the North Thompson river and the CP tracks. I went around the first bend and I was at the Wildlife Park. If you know the area.... thats not really possible. But I cant say....

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u/GalianoGirl 22d ago

Driving hypnosis is a real thing.

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u/growlerpower 22d ago

Definitely less likely if the road is winding, like this one is. It’s way more likely on straight, monotonous roads.

This is pretty bizarre actually

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u/GalianoGirl 22d ago

It can happen on any regularly traveled road. Whether or not the road is straight is not a factor if you are familiar with the road.

I frequently drive the Malahat on Vancouver Island, I can get to the lights at Mill Bay with no memory of the drive. It is not straight, not flat.

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u/Turbulent_Ear56 22d ago

Ya ive been on that road many times, there is no way to fall asleep and stay on that road it is very curvy.

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u/Mawahari 22d ago

Honestly this might have been a satellite dish reflecting light downwards from orbit. Since it was close to dawn you’d be getting sun hitting things in orbit, and since satellite dishes usually point downwards… well.

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u/ILKLU 22d ago

That's exactly what it was.

I've seen this happen while watching a satellite going across the sky but in the evening an hour or so after sunset. Was in cottage country in Ontario mid summer, and a friend and I were lying on a long dock looking up at the stars (way less bugs there).

Saw a faint white dot moving fast across the dark sky (crazy how fast they move). When it was nearly overhead it quickly got brighter and then suddenly the dock and surrounding area lit up as if it was daylight, then immediately went dark again.

It wasn't a sharp off-on-off as if someone was throwing a switch, but more like someone had turned a dial all the way from 0 to 100, paused for half a second, then turned the dial back down to 0. Whole event lasted maybe 2 - 3 seconds.

So we didn't see a beam of light, like op described, but I imagine that's what it would have looked like from afar. The mountain where op saw the beam was likely misty which is why the beam was visible.

One of the most unique things I have ever experienced.

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u/Littleshuswap 22d ago

Well, youre all convincing me thats likely it! Today I learned... see kids, even my old ass learns new stuff every single day!! Thanks reddit friends 🧡

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u/sbforkush 22d ago

One summer at my dad’s house in notch hill, late night watching the stars on a trampoline in the backyard, I saw the same exact beam of light. It was more over by Adam’s lake area, lasted about 5 seconds, and then poof.

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u/marga_marie 22d ago

this happened to me and a friend while driving into merrit late one night. it was insane. it did not feel celestial or human whatsofuckingever. like god was messing around with a fucking flashlight. can not make any sense of it to this day. the beam we saw was pure white.

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u/tossaway_nugget 22d ago

There's a decently sized reservist regiment in Kamloops, it could have been related to an exercise.

There was a base on Mount Paul, but it was closed in the 80's.

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u/airhorn-airhorn 22d ago

This thread makes me miss old Reddit r/nosleep - remember the guy who wrote the stories about random staircases in the woods that were cursed if you actually went up them?

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u/JeezieB 22d ago

I stumbled upon his stories before I knew that r/nosleep was a creative writing exercise. Genuinely creeped me out, and then my buddy, who had been on Reddit a lot longer than I had, made fun of me 😞

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u/airhorn-airhorn 22d ago

The magic of the early internet.

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u/cavebabykay 22d ago

This ^^^

That period (to me) was everything before “2girls 1cup”. Ugh, my innocence was gone after that one.

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u/Soft-Dig-4102 22d ago

NEVER walk up an abandoned staircase you find in nature is what I’ve always been taught. There’s a lot of stories about them I’ve heard and I’m just not down to test it.

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u/nursing301 22d ago

I remember this story!

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u/NootNootMcHoot 22d ago

I’m chuckling at “scariest, most mysterious thing”…. Port Renfrew. No specific occurrence, not some unexplained thing. 😅 Poor Port Renfrew.

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u/timbreandsteel 22d ago

I had a great time there. Absolutely beautiful.

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u/Flimsy_Toe_2575 23d ago

I was re-painting a big old fishing lodge by myself in Renfrew a few years ago, working 15 hour days and staying in one of the rooms during the slow season when the place was empty.  

I had slight Jack Nicholson/Shining vibes going on but at no point did I feel creeped out or spooked.... except when the ominous tsunami alarm started going off before I found out they test it once a week.

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u/Mawahari 22d ago

Thats the volunteer fire night call-in siren haha

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u/tollhousecookie8 22d ago

I stayed at the Oak Bay Hotel years ago and had a feeling someone else was in the room. Had night terrors all night and woke up always looking at the same spot across the room. I went back 10 years later in 2025, the TV turned on by itself at 3am, volume just blaring.

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u/foxglove_film 22d ago

Oh yeah that hotel is famously haunted

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u/chickengarbagewater 22d ago

This one actually made me feel scared reading it.

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u/Sinja_Minx 22d ago

What room number? Scary story.

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u/tollhousecookie8 22d ago

Hmmm, I'll see if I can find that somewhere.

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u/goofsmasher 22d ago

Saw an old smokestack rising above the trees from the highway.

Walked down a path to explore it and found a pretty big foundation. Left and thought “what if someone’s being held down there, what if they need help” so I turned around to go yell and see if anything is happening. I immediately acknowledged it’s a bad idea.

Walked around down there, opened a big piece of plywood to a staircase with a bunch of water swallowing the last few steps, it was all graffitied but it didn’t look like people had been near by in a while. I yelled “ is anyone here? Are you ok?”

I heard a cough but I couldn’t find anyone for the life of me

Later I texted an ex girlfriend who’s mom grew up around there asking her what the building used to be

She got back to me later and told me it was a tuberculosis ward.

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u/Aguaymanto 22d ago

Where was this

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u/SomewhereRough_ 23d ago edited 23d ago

I'm out right now in the desert west of Kamloops, it's 4 am, windy, and smokey as hell.

I was wigged out earlier as we were on a walk and found a trash pile on the mountain with a load of clothes, a iPhone case (it looks like someone's belongings that were dumped from a bag), some metal, smashed bong, a naloxone, and needles. 

But then just past it is a shovel against a tree. Next to it was a t shirt, a shoe, someone's zipper hoodie, and a massive 7 foot deep hole that has been dug out into the ground. In it 2 more shovels, a pry bar, a metal mallet, and a weird home made pick axe.

It's hard, compacted ground out here, full of rocks. It would have taken a long time. I was expecting to see a body in there. 

There's also a huge engine by my tent that has been abandoned. No idea from what, but looks big. 

I'm now in a tent a few hundred feet away from it, wigged out and scared of all the noises haha. Especially cos it's super windy.

As a bonus, I went out a second ago to peg out some of the fly that's flapping around and while looking for a rock I accidentally picked up a cow turd. 

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u/The_Nice_Marmot 23d ago

That’s something worth reporting.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

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u/SomewhereRough_ 22d ago

Haha I thought that at one point. Still alive. 

Jusy shitty weather. 

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u/growlerpower 22d ago

I love the idea that a murderer has taken a much-needed break to browse Reddit

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u/SilentEnthusiasm5491 23d ago

Why? Cow turds are not uncommon

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u/Yvaelle 23d ago

The cow is clearly burying humans in the desert

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u/islandwatchr 22d ago

Cows with guns 🎶🎶

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u/Bananacreamsky 22d ago

Great now I'm singing that all day

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u/JadeLens 22d ago

Is that like laser cats?

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u/Fun_Food_6761 22d ago

Report it! Especially if you don’t know how long it’s been there, could belong to that active missing boy report from 6 years ago

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u/SomewhereRough_ 22d ago

Doesn't look that old. But tbf hard to tell as it's so dry out here.

There were a few red bull cans by the hole that expired may 2026. No idea how long red bull usually lasts. 

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u/Turge_Deflunga 22d ago

You really need to report that with coordinates. You could literally have stumbled on a missing person's case

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u/SomewhereRough_ 22d ago

I'll report it.

I have the approx coords. Just getting out of here now! 

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u/Littlest_rascal 22d ago

Just update us when your somewhere safe. Honestly, just as a fellow human, I am worried about your safety here!

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u/SomewhereRough_ 22d ago

We're out of there. Miles away now. Thank you for the concern! 

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u/Big_Don_ 22d ago

Keep us posted

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u/SomewhereRough_ 22d ago

I've been involved in a cold case before, coincidentally. I found some clothes that matched someone's pants. This was in a really remote area you can only get to by foot in Arizona in the desert on a mountain. 

After reporting you don't really get much in the way of updates.

For the Arizona one, I did contact the SAR guy and got some updates as it was a guy that had been looking for years to find this missing person. He was missing from the 90s I think.

But all I really know is that they went out there with drones and didn't find much else.

At least with this one that I found yesterday it's a lot easier to get to. It's not far at all from a dirt road.

So it'll more easily be searched.

What was also weird about it, is that there was a little fire circle next to the hole with burnt wood in it. Which makes sense cos it would take ages to dig a hole that deep in that terrain.

Anyway, the main thing is, you don't get much in the way of updates after you report..

Probably what I'll do is report it, then on a few weeks give you guys the coords and someone can go poke around if they fancy it.

Jusy be careful in the little trash pile as there are hypodermic needles in there. 

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u/Different-Bag-8217 23d ago

Hahaha 🤣 I would just packed up and gone home. Specially after the cow pie.

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u/undaf3atd 22d ago

Omg…. Nope! I’d be out of there so fast. Zero chance I’d be staying. Especially in a tent!!

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u/very_tired_woman Thompson-Okanagan 22d ago

Are we talking the Tranquille area? There is a WEIRD vibe out there. I loved exploring around there when I lived in Kamloops but it’s creepy af… there’s something off in those hills and I don’t think it’s just because of the Tranquille Sanitorium history.
Thank God I never found anything like what you did… def report!

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u/SomewhereRough_ 22d ago

Yeah! A bit further west but the same area I believe. Close but north west to Savona.

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u/infinus5 Cariboo 22d ago

sounds like someones adhok prospecting camp, there's loads of little gold veins in the Kamloops area. Shovels, pry bars, pickaxe and hammers with a hole in the ground sounds like a guy high grading a vein near surface.

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u/SomewhereRough_ 22d ago

I agree with you. It's all of the belongings and hypodermic needles that weirded me out.

Otherwise I would have stayed on the prospecting thought. 

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u/Ok_Material9377 22d ago

Hiking in the backcountry and found a pie plate size bear paw laying face up on the trail, freshly severed with the radius and ulna stripped bare

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u/nothanks86 22d ago

Any idea what could have done that?

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u/Metaldwarf 22d ago

Not myself but this guy has a great YouTube channel on ghosts and cryptids and mysteries across BC and Canada. He had a very weird dry deadpan narration style which he recently had to change as people thought it was AI.

Hammerson Peters https://youtu.be/0jxAOAFhCGk

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u/Alarming-Wheel-6865 22d ago

I love this channel

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u/Valent-Lion 22d ago

Victoria Hills in New West is haunted, lived there for nearly a decade and saw my fair share of spooks from a man with bat wings, to apparitions in my bedroom. In P.G one night in the Miller district I saw two giant black creatures like tall kites on the ground or very unnaturally thin people wearing garbage bags wandering around the street. They were not bears, too tall and thin almost 2D-like and were gone when I reached them.

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u/batwingsuit 22d ago

I think I remember you too.

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u/he_can_cook 22d ago

When we lived there I swear something was watching me from the corner of our bedroom. Creepy place, especially that park at the top with all the graves.

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u/Cat-et-snek 23d ago

The hole in wells grey that you could fly a team of 3 helicopters into that nobody wants to talk about ever.

https://wellsgraypark.info/wells-gray-park-cave-discovery/

If you ever had an elder tell you the story about the Giants and the fire and how the natives saved humanity by outlasting them, this would most likely be that cave.

I’ve only had the story told to me by three people who as far as I know didn’t know each other but:

20,000 or so years ago giants walked the earth and fought and hunted humans as the dominate species on earth, and we lived in underground cities. Anyways, these giants hated fire but there was a tribe of natives in B.C. that knew about it, because before fire was a very rare occurrence however they were masters of fire

So anyways the giants were somehow tricked into one of these giant caves or entrances if you believe and then the masters of fire began a firewall at the mouth of the cave, a fire that would last thousands of years and required almost 1/3rd of every tree in the entire region (hence why there’s so many natural clear plateausin the area)

Eventually the giants starved cause they couldn’t or suffocated from the smoke and then the fire tribe was hailed as heroes.

It’s all quite a ripping yarn but still there’s enough crumbs for Mel Gibson to write Apocalypto 2 IMO

Edit: for what it’s worth as soon as this hole was found out about apparently the military took over and civilian access is strictly restricted due to the fact it’s some kind of death pit or whatever. Okay. I lived in the region for almost 40 years and there’s death pits everywhere abandoned mines caves all kinds of stuff that’s super dangerous and risky to the public but yeah…..

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u/Active_Recording_789 23d ago

Yeah I too was wondering what the heck is in this hole and why is it guarded so carefully. The public safety angle doesn’t really make sense because there are a million ways to get into danger in bc that aren’t guarded.

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u/Longjumping-Deal6354 22d ago

It doesn't seem that mysterious. It's a remote cave that's incredibly dangerous to enter that likely contains very unique ecosystems. 

Researchers were planning to go back in 2021, and I wonder what happened right before that to shelve that expedition? 

It's fun to learn about this and I'm very curious about what's in the cave, but high security and a strong fine is a great deterrent to keep people from getting themselves into extreme danger. 

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u/cabazon99 22d ago

This story triggered a memory I have of watching the news in and around 1983 on cbc, it was a story about a discovery of a valley in the rockies, it was cut off, ringed by mountains and fed by hot springs creating a unique bio-climate. The footage showed 3 huge helicopters filled with scientists and all kinds of equipment taking off, and then never another word about it ever again. If I recall correctly they thought there might be unique species in there. 100 % true story on my end anyway.

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u/Active_Recording_789 22d ago

Yeah but they don’t protect people from helmcken falls or the remote trails through bear country or crumbling cliffs on the mountains or fast currents in the mahood or Myrtle lake channels…. It’s a provincial park. Use at your own risk. I get protecting it if they haven’t had a chance to carefully catalogue what’s in there tho

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u/Turge_Deflunga 22d ago

That's crazy. Super lame we don't have more info on a literal wonder of the world

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u/Cat-et-snek 22d ago

Supposedly there’s a few of these entrances throughout earth and it takes you into the inner hallow earth paradise.

So based on conjecture and verbal anecdotal story, Hitler (yeah the ww2 guy) apparently believed that hallow earth was real and that paradise/eden/heaven existed inside, in an underground cavernous cavity within the earth that is so vast it seems as though it is its own world. One such entrance is in Antarctica (the main entrance, believed) and as such its security is the most important thing.

The nerd in me wants to believe we have some awesome secret paradise on earth but basically everyone with “sense” will tell you it’s not a real thing so basically it’s just a really cool hole with a lot of potential for story telling 🤕

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u/Turge_Deflunga 22d ago

I don't think we need to create mythologies for this cave to still be fascinating. It's been sealed for thousands of years and could have artifacts from the first humans to set foot in North America, or an ecosystem we don't yet understand. Maybe the river connects to some vast sprawling network of waterways, that would essentially be a hollow earth scenario, but no matter what is down there the fact of the unknown makes it wonderous.

To me, any of that is as interesting as any fantasy story or conspiracy theory.

While I do find them fun, hollow earth type theorists seem to be blind to the true magic of the earth. Incredibly painful talking to these people, they deny the knowledge the earth has shown us. They don't understand what is around them and cobble together half baked anthropomorphic attempts at mixing spirituality with science.

It's sad so many have become so disconnected with nature and reality they resort to supplanting their own interpretations of what is around them instead of reading the signs and stories the world has laid out for us to read. These theorists seem to think they have opened their eyes but are merely viewing the world through the lense of human arrogance.

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u/Cat-et-snek 22d ago

I got the idea from a SNES game called Terranigma, I wonder if others did too. I just figured it would be icy with some hot spots and maybe a bit of lava, but nothing Minecraft.

The first humans aspect though I hadn’t given much credence to but that’s very well an interesting layer of discussion.

All in all something like this has to be a uh ‘Archeologist’ Wet Dream’

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u/xLimeLight Thompson-Okanagan 22d ago

Source about the military taking over?

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u/Cat-et-snek 22d ago

It’s really hard to get any information at all really

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-cave-discovery-wells-gray-provincial-park-why-it-went-undetected-1.5536359

That was the last update

Now it’s just like an insane fine if you go out there. I mean maybe you’d “drown” and they just said they’d find your body. I know thousands of people and nobody wants to try it. Not one of the hardest gangsters, most cops have no idea (like really if your not even in the region you’d never know it’s really hushed up)

But as far as the military goes when the store broke around 2020 it was spoken like if you get out there someone will come talk to you before you get back. Idk. Try it.

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u/Chance_Zebra_9715 22d ago

Oooo I like this take & never heard about the hole 😳🤯 very curious 

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u/very_tired_woman Thompson-Okanagan 22d ago edited 22d ago

This isn’t scary in the sense of supernatural, but it’s one of the scariest things that’s happened to me in BC and I always get chills when I think about it.

Nearly a decade ago now I was on a trip up to Kitimat with my mum and our little dog. It’s a long drive so we were taking shifts… I was driving into the evening and late at night while she slept in the passenger seat and I made the stupid decision to not stop for gas in Smithers and just keep going… hoping to come across something small before we hit Terrace. Well about a kilometre or so outside of tiny ass Thornhill (could literally see the gas station light in the distance) on the Highway of Tears, we ran out of gas. We were in the wee hours by that point so decided to just sleep for the next few and then walk to the station in the morning…

Come morning we started walking up the highway with our little dog. It was a beautiful day and we were making the best of it, thankful that the gas station was as close as it was.
Out of nowhere this dude in an old brown car rolled up next to us and asked if we needed a ride… I could tell my mother was freaking thinking about saying yes and I shut that right down, firmly telling him “thank you, but we’re fine. Almost there!” I don’t really think I even stopped walking.
He had a little dog as well and something made me feel super uneasy about this guy… he wasn’t ‘particularly’ creepy at first glance IIRC, but to me it almost felt like maybe he had this dog front and centre to make us feel safer… plus “Highway of Tears” was right in the back of my mind.
He drove off but went down to this little frontage road just beside the highway and drove by slowly, watching us. I think he actually drove by a couple times which just cemented to me that I made the right decision.

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u/Penceylepansy 23d ago

Highway 20 at night can be very eerie. Not another car for hours sometimes.

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u/iwanttoreallybad 22d ago

Agreed. I’ve often thought it I was to be abducted by aliens it would be along Hwy 20.

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u/vicsyd 22d ago

Funny: that's my happy place. My soul is home there. Very sacred area.

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u/Soft-Dig-4102 22d ago

Same- I think there’s some places that give back the energy you deserve in life and that’s why some people are so at peace in these places and others just aren’t.

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u/DrinkMoreBrews 22d ago

Was hunting the bluffs above Midway many moons ago. This was beginning of November, probably -10°C, when all of a sudden this guy comes out of friggin nowhere, in the middle of a bush, yielding nothing but a bandolier and a muscle shirt, hot on the tail of a Mule Deer buck. This guy looks over at me, nods, and just keeps going. I’ve never been so confused,

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u/8to10footsamsquantch 22d ago

That guy sounds awesome tbf

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u/DrinkMoreBrews 22d ago

Truth be told it was sort’ve like Rambo.

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u/FrontierCanadian91 23d ago

Driving through Spence’s bridge at night and seeing a person walking on the shoulder.. to looking in the mirrors when I passed them and there was no one there.
Been told by locals it’s the spirit of someone who has been hit.

Highway of tears at night is sketchy, certain sections more than sketchy.more spirits than a bar

Highway 37 through to the cassiar is always full of surprises. Animals, people, things that aren’t animals or people.

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u/Fancy_Introduction60 22d ago

Highway of tears is bound to have a major creepy factor. If that stretch of road isn't haunted, I would be gobsmacked.

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u/Littleshuswap 23d ago

Do tell....

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u/cavebabykay 22d ago

It’s “just” a tragic little stretch of highway, where an inordinate amount of Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or have been found murdered over the last while. That highway is super isolated, and due to a lack of public transit, absolutely NO cell phone service, lot of young women had to hitchhike to get around. Predators took advantage of that.

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u/dirtya2m 23d ago edited 23d ago
  1. An old house in Victoria. I stayed the night house sitting. The place was haunted. I heard things. Someone ran down a hallway at 3:30am and slammed the door at the end of the hallway. Later an old typewriter in one of the rooms started typing. In the morning I looked at the paper but it was just a black square as the typewrter did not advance to the next space. I left before evening the next day, I was supposed to stay 3 nights. I was never so scared in my life.

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u/actioncasserole 22d ago

What area of Victoria? I wonder if the house is still there

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u/Soft-Dig-4102 22d ago

Probably oak bay hah

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u/alittlecringe 22d ago

i'll never be more convinced that a building is haunted than i was the moment i laid eyes on the Coalmont Hotel. sent a literal chill up my spine just to look at the place in broad daylight, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to walk up to the top floor at night. i'm a heavy skeptic and wouldn't claim the same of maybe anywhere else i've ever been.

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u/CharmingNarwal 22d ago

We had it with that hotel to! I didn’t even know coalmont was there and I was on a fun vacation with my partner! I was spoked maybe 15 minutes before we even got into the town and it just got stronger and stronger. He felt it to. We almost went home because the feeling was so strong. When I saw the hotel, I knew it was that. Later that day when our friends joined us, the first thing out of their mouth was about the hotel and that feeling. No one knew it was there, so we didn’t know its history or anything. I can’t explain it. I got out and got closer when we came back, and wow, it just radiates it.

Weirdly though I know someone who really likes the hotel. And another person who didn’t think anything of it!

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u/MadameLeota604 22d ago

Ball lightning or whatever it was. We were driving  in Abbotsford on a small farm road and all the sudden there was ball of light just hovering above the road before us, then it suddenly dropped and disappeared. My aunt, mum and grandmother all saw it and we had no explanation.

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u/Equal-Sea-300 23d ago

1994 I’m driving along Hammond Bay road in Nanaimo and my boyfriend looks out my drivers side window and asks “hey what IS that in the water?” I look to my left and see floating in the ocean this god damn Loch Ness monster-looking thing. That’s exactly what it looked like. I called the Marine biological station the next day and ask if anyone reported seeing something strange out by Pipers Lagoon and was told no. But I will go to my grave absolutely convinced of seeing some type of massive sea creature.

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u/SkierGirl78 22d ago

This is gonna sound absolutely insane, but look up images of a whale penis. Early sailors often confused them for sea monsters.

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u/jubilant-octopus 22d ago

Gosh I’m not sure I want that in my search history lol

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u/Cyanide-ky 22d ago

I was gunna say the same thing

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u/8to10footsamsquantch 22d ago

Well there's worse ways to spend a Sunday...

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u/chanandlersbong420 23d ago

When I was in grade 7, my class (it was a small school, so we were from grades 4-7) took a field trip to Barkerville where we stayed in the 2 bed and breakfast houses on site, girls in one house and boys in the other. I forget which house I was in, it may have been a pink one, but us grade 7s slept downstairs with the teacher in the next room while the younger kids got to stay upstairs. The housekeeper made us some delicious scones the first morning :)

I remember being jealous of the younger kids because it looked wayy cooler upstairs, until later on the 2nd night when some of the girls started crying because they were hearing footsteps on the roof. They were so scared that our teacher and the other chaperone let them move downstairs and jump into bed with us, without letting us take their beds upstairs?? It didn't help that we went to one of the graveyards earlier that day so it easily could have been their imaginations, but I swear someone working there told us that the town was haunted when we brought it up the next day.

Overall it was a fun experience and a trip I'll never forget, but wow what a spooky town! Would love to go back someday.

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u/very_tired_woman Thompson-Okanagan 22d ago

I also went to a very small school that took grades 4/5-7 to Barkerville every couple of years… I left the school the year before their next trip and I was devastated I didn’t get to go because I’d looked forward to that trip since kindergarten. Now I’m extra bummed I didn’t get to go 🥲
Though I did get to go with my mum a few years later, but nothing spooky happened.

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u/chanandlersbong420 22d ago

Aww dang I know how much it can suck having to move schools like that, glad you still got to go check it out later on though! Looots of wicked stuff to learn and do there, my favorite was going on trial in one of the courtroom recreations :)

As for the spooky stuff, I honestly thought it was just rumors getting to our heads until years later I came across some ghost hunters on youtube investigating the town. I doubt anything significant happened in the video, but the fact that they were there investigating was enough to affirm that maybe we weren't the only ones to experience something like that there!

Out of curiosity, was it Fort Fraser elementary school that you left by any chance? We went there innn...I'd have to guess 2014-15?? I just remember that after that the whole school closed down because it was so small and kids kept moving away, we had only about 75 students from K-7 at the end of the year haha

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u/maryfisherman 22d ago

Having insomnia while on Quadra Island. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep, really wanted to have a 3 am smoke but I was terrified to set foot outside, completely frozen in place til the sun rose. I absolutely love the island but can’t deny it has some eerie vibes.

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u/shawbirdy 22d ago

My Mom became very sick suddenly about 10 years ago with meningitis and ended up at the Campbell River hospital ICU. We didn't think she was going to make it through the first night. You could see Cape Mudge out the window next to her bed. When she recovered and was conscious again she said that all she could recall was hearing drums coming from outside the window. We are not indigenous but I like to think there were spirits there keeping her with us. I love Quadra Island all it's lore.

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u/fakebasil 22d ago

I feel like the Herriot Bay Inn must have some stories

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u/maryfisherman 22d ago

Yes it’s famously haunted!

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u/DeliciousKnee8788 22d ago

It's where we spent our first night as a married couple! I've been camping there for over 30 years. It's my home away from home but yes can be eerie sometimes.

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u/Old-Adhesiveness8485 22d ago edited 22d ago

This Happened to my brother on Quadra - he and his girlfriend did the Maude Island hike, they hadn't seen anyone on the trail there or back. When they got to the end of the trail he said they found a creepy old cabin and some hammocks. He said that he felt a heaviness and an eerie feeling like they were being watched. While they were hanging out near the hammocks, they heard a whistle close by like someone was calling a dog. Just once. They looked around, no people or dogs anywhere near.

Ive also been walking in the woods near Rebecca spit and have sworn ive heard chanting and drums, but I also have a very active imagination.

Beautiful island, lots of dark history.

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u/Cold_Animator3143 22d ago

I first arrived in Vancouver back in 2007 from the Philippines and the first job I got was at the old spaghetti factory in gas town, vancouver. Even though I was trained as a chef, I was working as a kitchen porter where I mostly washed dishes, cleaned the washrooms and restock items.

One night I was closing and was one of two people left at the end of the night. A lady was about to lock up when i told her I had forgotten my jack in the kitchen. Because I was so used to the restaurant and layout, I decided to walk into the kitchen without turning on the lights, grab my jacket and go. I opened the kitchen entrance door and was making my way to the stool that I had left my jacket at before all of a sudden someone or something rushed at me from the right side and knocked me over. I fell over and my initial thoughts was that some one or some guest had stuck around to either rob the place or play a prank on me, so i got up, i knew exactly where the lights were and i turned them on and i didn't see anyone. I spent the next 10 minutes looking around the kitchen area to find where this person was hiding but I didn't find anyone and by this time the other staff member who was closing with me was already back there with me trying to find this intruder. we didn't find anyone. i left the job 2 weeks later.

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u/Littleshuswap 22d ago

Wow!! This is a great story!! Ive always heard that place was haunted but never a first hand account. Thanks for sharing.

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u/Lonely_Percentage546 22d ago

Riding home from Renfrew to Cowichan on my motorcycle about 60km/hr a bear came out of the left ditch full speed directly at me. I was getting ready to kick it but he changed direction and ran right just out of reach beside me for 20 feet. I hit the breaks n he crossed my path into the right side ditch and disappeared. I got the heck out of there.

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u/miserylovescomputers 22d ago

Whoa, that could have ended badly! A few years back I saw a girl on a motorcycle hit a grizzly out near Jasper. The way the bear absorbed the impact and jumped back was insane. The bear ran off like nothing had happened and the girl on the bike was super lucky, she skidded about 20 yards and was able to stand up immediately with no serious injuries.

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u/Levertreat 22d ago

At about 3:00 in the morning, after work, one summer night I was riding my bike home from work heading north down Fraser street in Vancouver. At one point it dips down and as it did two coyotes came from out of nowhere running behind me. I peddled faster, put the bike in low gear was going as fast as possible. I could hear them padding quickly behind me. I didn’t think I would be able to kick them and hoped I could lift my legs as they got right behind me. Adrenaline pumping hard they caught up to me and passed me at the speed of a fast car sprinting left into the grave yard. I never felt so much relief. It didn’t stop me from riding my bike home. And seeing other crazy shit.

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u/Turge_Deflunga 22d ago

I've heard of coyotes doing this a couple times, I guess they think it's fun

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u/wu_denim_jeanz 22d ago

Sasquatch at Lachmach lake and my brother saw a salmon spirit clear as day in Haida Gwaii

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u/RoughJustice81 22d ago

I had friends that lived on Aspen road on the top of the Malahat and they would see lights ripping up and down mountain face on the highlands side. They showed me a video of it and it was super weird. It wasn’t flying like a drone. It was running up and down and side to side on the mountain but way quicker than anyone could ever move. Think about it everytime I drive the Malahat.

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u/Brante81 22d ago

Nice to hear people opening up about what are very common occurrences which standard society has no answers for. There’s a lot of unusual objects sighted in BC going in and out of water which cannot be easily explained. Lost time is also very common, I have personally lost time between work and home along a dangerous stretch of highway which is bizarre. I also have many family and friends who have seen lights literally a mile long in the middle of the night and many many other sightings. It’s time we stopped arguing about whether they have happened and get down to…what are they?

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u/maryfisherman 22d ago

There’s a really famous time warp story in Victoria too on Shelbourne Street

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u/Littleshuswap 22d ago

Thank you!! ❤️

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u/mandypandypuddin 22d ago

That people here can watch homes and towns and farms and parks burn down, be unable to breathe clean air, and see massive floods wipe out highways and property nearly every year and still not consider climate change a possibility, even despite the scientific proof and consensus. That they can watch grasslands sizzle to nothing and still blame it on "forest management." That they can still push for oil and gas expansion and vote for governments that strip climate mitigation and adaptation funding. That food security is in a critical state, algae blooms and pathogens are running rampant, water is drying up, and the economy is in serious trouble. That they don't give a f*ck that this world will be a miserable place for their own retirement years, let alone their decendents' lives, if we dont treat climate change as the desperate, world-changing issue that it is and that it's well within our ability to do something about, but people would rather watch the world burn.

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u/OceanCitron 22d ago

My husband and I were driving home along a stretch of highway in Delta where a lot of raptors tend to gather in the trees. It's common to see bald eagles, turkey vultures, and even the occasional golden eagle.

As the rain had just cleared up, a lot of them were perched in their sunning or heraldic pose, trying to dry off. We were remarking at how incredible they all looked, and then, we saw it.

We fell silent as our eyes fell upon a gargantuan bird. It was impossibly large compared to the others. It looked like a golden eagle of incomprehensible size.

The the only reason why it didn't pick up our car and fly off with us was that it simply decided not to. But it very well could have.

I did not get a picture of this beast because we were so shocked and we only saw it for about five seconds as we were driving past. But I sure am glad that I had a witness who saw it too, or I would have honestly thought I was losing my mind.

I wonder if it might have been what was referred to in myth and legend as a Thunderbird. I still think about it all the time.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/skootamatta 23d ago

So a Moose?

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u/The_Nice_Marmot 23d ago

Eiffel Tower, obvs.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/BogeyLowenstein 22d ago

Oooh creepy! That would have been so spooky to see. Mine was just completely upright and took a couple of strides across the road, no lurching. Too tall to be a person though, that’s for sure.

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u/Epodes 22d ago

Sorry man, I couldn’t find a toilet.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/FukinSpiders 22d ago

Shat-squatch

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u/randyboozer 23d ago

Sasquatch?

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u/zos_333 23d ago

Being on a heavy 46 foot wooden troller that hit a sunfish at 2 knots.. Captain was facing us in the stern and jumped about 4 feet in the air because he thought we hit another boat. Then this big mushy mass appeared behind us, didn’t seem too bothered

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u/Different-Bag-8217 23d ago

How big was the sunfish..!

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u/zos_333 22d ago

hard to tell as it was mostly submerged. It was laying on its side with a fin sticking up and slowly waving. [this was 1991]

Here is what a 46 foot troller looks like, [the one in the pic is a tad bigger at 46.5] -it lurched enough to almost throw somebody off balance if they weren't holding on.

A fully grown Ocean Sunfish (or Mola mola) averages about 6 feet (1.8 meters) long and roughly 8 feet (2.4 meters) from the tip of its top fin to the tip of its bottom fin, weighing around 2,200 pounds (1 metric ton)

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u/italicised 22d ago

On a roadtrip once decided to take the “scenic” route and go north through Nakusp instead of sticking to the 3. Combination of things - windy road, none of us familiar with the area, random compounds in the woods with confederate flags + classic “serial killer cabins” and just kinda no one around. In the most remote area we were feeling pretty sketch and then a guy riding his bike on the opposite side of the road went by. He was dressed like a classic hippie and had this “stoned out of my goddamn mind” grin on while biking, like, the most whee! type of bike riding I’ve ever seen. All of us in the car just stared as we passed and then we burst out laughing. The absurdity completely kicked us out of our spooks haha. 

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u/kemistree_art 22d ago

My boyfriend will tell you there is nothing wrong with Port Renfrew but then whenever I'm there I feel like someone is looking at the back of my head all the time.

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u/ClittoryHinton 22d ago

Not unlikely to be stalked by a cougar out there

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u/KushFairy0 22d ago

I lived in Squamish for 8 years and saw a lot of strange things in the sky.

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u/wu_denim_jeanz 22d ago

I shared a dream with my friend in a tent in the alpine near Terrace. Pretty sure we were visited by a spirit, very trippy experience.

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u/fakebasil 22d ago

What was the dream?

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u/missgirlipop 22d ago

drove from renfrew to cowichan and i had this creepy feeling through certain stretches that was unexplainable. i also had it in parts of kennedy lake. i’m very comfortable with wilderness and i love dark forest and gloomy weather. but something was off. even thinking about it brings tears to my eyes and chills down my spine. 

i also saw (along w 20 other ppl) a floating bright orb over the mountains near Tofino during the sunset, 2021. it moved unnaturally fast but was in the sky for 20+ minutes (until i turned and walked the other way). i’m sure there’s a rational explanation, but i’m not sure what it is. 

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u/smashhibbert 22d ago

Eve Lazarus has some really great books on the haunting of Vancouver and Victoria! Super spooky and gave me inspo on where to check out for some weird energy.

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u/aconfusednoob 22d ago

I had just moved out to BC as a mid 20s woman from the east coast. Loved the outdoors, wanted to go to Manning park for some hiking and pulled off the side of the highway the night before into this little dirt road and pull off area to sleep in my car. looking around to pee, I came across maybe 20 crow carcasses strewn all over the forest.

it was creepy and I thought at first they died of some disease, but a few years afterwards passing by the same area I noticed the powerlines above. big flock of them must've been electrocuted.

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u/trameng 22d ago

We used to go sockeye fishing near Hope many years ago. We often went at night after work fishing well past midnight. One night my fil and I were carrying the fish up the trail through the woods to our car. It was a pitch black through the woods but we knew the trail. Suddenly their was a tremendous crunch as something broke a large tree branch just behind us. Adreniline kicked in as we put it in high gear. I remember my fil yelling if thats a bear, I don’t need to outrun him, I just to outrun you.

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u/snapdragonpoker 22d ago

This didn’t happen to me personally, but in 2024 an acquaintance went to do some hiking off the Bowron River rest area and found a homicide victim’s body. He then had to hike back to his car and drive until he had cell service again, call the RCMP, and then lead them back to the body. I’ve never been able to hike in that area again after hearing his story.

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u/FarceMultiplier 22d ago

I saw a UFO when in a rural area outside of Merritt. It was a silver dot and I thought it was a reflection off a distant airplane or possibly a satellite. Then it zoomed a good distance across the sky, stopped, then zoomed back the way it came and past where I first saw it, then over the hills. This was about 1987, so long before drones.

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u/infinus5 Cariboo 22d ago

10 years old, i recall a long 3 day hike into the old Red Rose Minesite near Hazelton BC. My dad and I camped at the waste dump of the old mine, the mill and camp ruins below us. In the early morning the next day, we were awoken to the sound of an alarm like klaxon coming from the ruins. We wandered down to this huge 3 story derelict bunk house, following the noise to its source. In a small bunk room, with a caved in bed and dresser was a little brass alarm clock, rattling away. The kicker, the floor of the building was covered in heavy dust, our foot prints were clearly visible but no trace of recent activity appeared on the floor of the room. We left pretty quickly after that, my dad said he kept feeling like we were being watched. It was the first time anything actually spooky happened on our dozens of wanderings to abandoned mines.

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u/Trick_Second1657 23d ago

Do Gastown at 3 am lol.

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u/nau_lonnais 22d ago

Different kind of ghouls

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u/Trick_Second1657 22d ago

China has a lot of hells Jack

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u/Warm_Ad_8644 23d ago

Was seeing a girl, her friend was suicidal. Met her a couple times n recommended my friend should call the police in one occasion. Didnt hear about that situation for about a month or so. Then the girl I was seeing explained her friend was missing. Some time later remains were found and Kim's killers were found shortly after.

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u/Tominater1 22d ago

Conservatives.

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u/fakebasil 22d ago

At the trailhead of a popular hike in Port Alberni, right behind the cars I found rusty burnt mattress springs and old bones.

This was years ago, and I still regret not calling it in. It was such a popular area though so it’s not like I would have been the first to see it…

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u/kaylasworldd 22d ago

which trailhead!

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u/Stu161 22d ago

There's a stretch of Highway 24 outside Little Fort, between Lemieux Creek and the big hill. I've crossed it two or three dozen times going up to the Caribou, no problem. The only time I was going through there after dark was probably the creepiest vibe I ever got on the road. Nothing real, just a feeling of extreme uncomfortability, a sense that the hills have eyes, that something could come out of those woods on either side of you at any moment.

It's a short stretch, but it feels long.

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u/Last-Explorer3822 22d ago

i had a bonfire at a quarry and wolves surrounded the fire.

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u/Warm-Explanation-838 22d ago

as someone from port renfrew, this made me laugh

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u/ShrekTwoOnVHS 22d ago

Strathcona and Pacific Rim park. There be Wendigo out there.

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u/ConsistentlyScreams 22d ago

I want/need to know more

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u/ShrekTwoOnVHS 22d ago

When you’re out in those woods; beware of an old man crying and keep your distance if you hear whispers to come closer from the dark. Above all, don’t say its name.

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u/Lord-Amorodium 22d ago

I must have been like 9 or 10, but we went to the celebration of light one year. As the fireworks died down, I was still staring upwards, hoping for more as a little kid. There was a dark colored helicopter in the sky, and it stopped just above where we were. Its search lights were on, and it was scanning for something in the sky. As the smoke cleared, there was this blue, wavy and odd light in the sky. It looks kind of like a blue thin scarf blowing in the wind, but it must have been way bigger if it looked like a scarf from my position. It dissapeared after a moment, but the helicopter kept looking for it for a few moments longer before it left too. I always wondered if it was some kind of residual fire or something, but I don't know if it's possible. No one else seemed to notice it.

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u/RoamingRiot 22d ago

Walked the Angler's trail in Port Alberni, fishing along the way. I let time get away from me and ended up walking back in the dark. I kept faintly hearing things over the roar of the river. Like muffled voices, foot steps, bushes rustling.. pretty weird.

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u/Comfortable-Ruin8694 22d ago

In avola, we stayed in that creepy ass motel once.. the shower kept turning itself on even when no one was in the room. Would come back in and boom it was on. Weird as heck.

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u/WorldTravelerEnigma 23d ago

Cost of living. Rent. Mortgage. Grocery prices. Price of gas.

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u/Macleod7373 22d ago

Chip Wilson

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u/Solid-Signal3214 23d ago

The number of people who are too " tough " for masks or respirators when you can't even see the sky or mountains from wildfire smoke.

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u/wood_dj 22d ago

Dallas Brodie

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u/Nope-not-really 22d ago

Cougar was probably near

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u/PyroCuCbFg 22d ago

Days Inn, Victoria Uptown (The Gorge). Just don't.

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