People Share Their Creepiest Encounters In Cemeteries And Graveyards

"I work at a graveyard, and I just have one thing to say. Plastic. Here in Norway graves are protected by law for 20 years, but after that, the spots can be 'reused'. Usually, a grave is fine to reopen after 20 years - the body is supposed to be decomposed and pretty much gone. Now back to plastic:

"Between the 50s and 80s, it was common here to be buried in plastic, to minimize 'smell and leakage'. I'm sure they thought it was a good idea back then, but once we started reusing graves in Norway we realized it is a curse. A lot of bodies are wrapped in plastic, and I've myself been part of what was supposed to be a burial at a reused site. The body was about 50 or 60 years old and should be basically gone, but nope it was not the plastic wrap it was covered by kept the body from decomposing, and it's basically just been marinated in its own juices for 50/60 years. The smell was awful, the sight was even worse." — ullabr

"In the cemetery mausoleum-chapel where I occasionally play the organ for funerals, vandals had broken in the night before a service.

"They smashed several crypt covers (probably with sled hammers), exposing the remains of those that had been entombed therein. It was an eerie atmosphere to hold a funeral service that morning with such desecration in plain sight." — Back2Bach

It's hard to tell whether this was mindless vandalism or grave-robbing. Grave-robbing is a crime that we naturally associate with the Victorian era; however, it still occurs today.

"Former funeral director here. One of our workers cleaned up after everyone had left from a visitation/viewing/wake. It was about 9 pm or later and he saw one last guest walking around in the visitation room. He went to help escort the gentleman out when he discovered no one was in there. When he came back in and told us the story and described the visitor. He identified the man in a photo we had at the funeral home, it was my grandfather (family business) who had recently passed." — kittenmcmuffenz

Their grandfather was probably just checking they weren't running the business into the ground!

"A man would come and sit in a folding chair at the burial plot of his wife. Brought the paper and books to read, his lunch and a small portable radio with him. He would lay a large towel down and take a nap on her grave. About a month of doing this every day, and laying on her plot, he ended his life by shooting himself in his heart. I thought it a really beautiful final act of devotion he gave and was in complete respect for this man." — thedge32

Apparently he ended his life on the grave of his dead wife. What a tragic, yet heartbreakingly touching story.

"Worked in a cemetery over the summer during college. One morning I was mowing the grounds and discovered the body of a cat which had been bound and set on fire." — SnoopySuited

Who knows why anyone would do such a thing to an innocent animal, hopefully, the person who did this was caught.

"My dad purchased a cemetery when I was in middle school, and I worked for him through high school graduation. The strangest is when you have a burial in the crypts. Basically, you dig down about 4 or 5 feet to expose giant cement doors. You pull the cement doors off and drop down into a little room. These rooms can fit 2 coffins, OR years and years and years worth of cremated remains. So back in the 50s and 60s, family's would buy one crypt and the entire fam would be cremated and put in it.

"Some just put the cremated remains in it and close her up, but others light candles and leave flowers and souvenirs and pictures and shit. It's creepy opening up one of those bad boys after 50 years and finding melted candles and old pictures of the people inside. Plus when you hop down in there you have a weird realization that you are at the same level and completely surrounded by bodies..." — whiteclawlaw

"I worked for a county cemetery department years ago. Occasionally people would stumble upon some headstones in a field or a stand of trees and we would come out and prod the ground with dowel rods to find more headstones and reestablish the cemetery. Soon after I started working there we got a tip about some headstones a farmer found while clearing out a path through some trees for easier access to his field.

"It turned out to be the oldest cemetery in the county dating back to the 1700's. After investigating some of the names on the headstones it got really creepy. The story is that before the cemetery was there a school house stood there. The teachers were a husband and wife. It's not clear on what exactly happened but the students and the husband and wife all died in the schoolhouse. The information we found kind of made it sound like an illness of some kind and they were all quarantined in the school until they all died. After that, the school was demolished and the students and husband and wife were all buried right where the school stood." — BrutalBob1384

Nothing says creepy quite like a graveyard built amongst the ruins of a plague-ridden school.

"I used to do some odd jobs at the 12th-century graveyard in my hometown. 12th century, as in the church and its surrounding graveyard had been in continuous use for at least that long. When you keep burying bodies in the same small patch of ground for that many centuries, eventually the soil has been turned over dozens of times and consists mainly of bone fragments.

"You can't even plant flowers there without accidentally uncovering some teeth or finger bones or something, it's nothing but fragmented skeletons all the way down under the thin turf. The 'soil' sort of resembles seaside shellsand, except on closer examination all the light-colored bits are bone fragments rather than crushed seashells.

"You learn to treat anything recognizable as human remains with respect, and just tuck it away out of sight under the plant or whatever else you were putting there." — BoredCop

Can't say I'd be too keen to be digging and planting flowers on that land! You could do a good Halloween version of Gardener's World there though.

"Not really a cemetery experience, but it was still pretty freaky. My grandparents live out in the middle of nowhere. On their property, there was a whole family that owned my grandparents property before them. From what I was told they were killed or something like that.

"When I was living with my grandparents, a relative [of] the dead family came to the property and wanted to remove the bodies from the land. My grandpa was extremely happy about it because he wanted to expand the house but couldn't because he didn't want to mess with the graves.

They got together and I stood nearby, watching them dig up four caskets. There were three adults sized caskets and one child-sized casket. One of the bigger caskets had holes and cracks all over it. That was the one that my grandpa and the other relative were carrying when the body fell out the bottom.

"The body was pretty much bones but it still had old muscle and tissue on it. I remember feeling sick to my stomach as O watched them uncomfortably put the body back into the casket upside down." — Xaixiu

"I don't work in a cemetery, but I did go clean one up with my family. We cut down weeds planted flowers etc; so anyways I was wiping off graves when I seen three graves side by side and they didn't have the same last name so I asked my mom if they were related and she said 'no, but a women was married to them and they had all gotten into accidents within two years of being married to her.

"She buried them side by side and when she passed away she requested to be buried in a cemetery two counties away. It's strange because the first grave the man died in 1984 the second died in 1986 and the third died in 1988. They were all very wealthy and owned their own businesses and when they died she closed the businesses.'" — nkeene32

Well now, that doesn't scream suspicious circumstances at all does it?

"My partner and I had just gotten back to the funeral home from a house call for a 31-year-old woman who died of cancer. As we were moving her body from the cot to embalming table we heard an audible click and the radio across the room turned on full volume of static. It's one of those old radios you turn the volume dial until it clicks to turn it on.

"We looked at each other. He was an extremely religious man and this event visibly shook him and he left not long after. I shut the radio off. When I'd finished the procedure and was attempting to move her from the embalming table to a dressing table I heard that click from that old radio and it turned on full volume yet again.

"At that point, I was fairly freaked out and made my exit not long after. My partner and I never spoke of it again and nothing like that ever occurred to my knowledge before or after." — AlcoholicSpaceEater

There were so many responses from people who were funeral directors. Although, it's a job that does attract a certain level of the macabre I guess.

"When I lived in Guam I was impressed by their huge cemeteries with their gigantic white monuments and was wandering through at dusk one day and saw a mist rising from one particular monument and being a little freaked, left quickly. It happened a few times and I was seriously starting to question my sanity so the next time I saw it I decided to approach to see detail only to find that it was a very sad brother having a cigarette with his deceased brother. I told him he had scared the crap out of me and he said that he'd seen plenty of things there to make him question his sanity." — The1stQueenbee

This one is incredibly sad. It can help the grieving process by spending time at the grave of those we have lost; however, it is important to remember you have to move forward with your own life too.

"We had a late afternoon service once that ran into the evening, it was October so the sun went down early while I was filling in the grave afterward. Conveniently none of the lights on the loader tractor worked for some reason. No blown fuses or loose wires or anything the lights just didn’t work.

"Next day when I reported the issue we went over to the same tractor and the lights worked perfectly fine and they worked fine the rest of the time I worked there." — kg1206

As creepy as this may have been, this person was incredibly lucky that they got haunted by a mechanic's ghost while they were having car trouble.

"I dug graves for six months. One afternoon we had to hand dig a hole in a older cemetery b/c we couldn't run any heavy equipment over any of the older plots. It was super tough and took us a lot longer than usual. When we were finally close to be done, it was dark and hard to see. I remember my shovel hitting a brick of the neighboring plot (before cement casks), and it comes loose. I swear to god I saw something move inside the small hole and practically jumped out of the grave. I got back in to finish the job, but was definitely spooked." — MoreTorqueSteve

More than likely it would have been a mouse or a rat. However, I know for a fact I would not have been that logical in the heat of the moment.

"I take care of a small family mausoleum. One day, as I was closing up my office, my phone rang and when I answered it there was a very agitated woman on the other end. She was very clearly under the influence of something. She asked me repeatedly if I knew where Jane Smith was. Jane Smith has been buried in the mausoleum since the early 1900s. I asked her why she needed to know.

"The woman very calmly asked me to go to the mausoleum to double-check that Jane was still there because she believed that she was her. I assured her that I was pretty sure Jane was still peacefully buried and our phone conversation ended a few moments later. Drugs and alcohol are a hell of a thing, but it still creeped me out enough that I don't answer my phone after 5 pm any longer and I make sure someone is with me when I go to the cemetery." — lurkermclurkerson19

"I used to work as a 'park ranger' in a cemetery in London which has been converted into a nature reserve. Regularly we'd find ammunition, knives and occasionally pistols hidden in the memorials/gravestones and the police would be called to collect them.

"Only once I had the honor of finding something. I found a plastic bag stuffed behind a collapsed monument and inside it had a load of shotgun shells. It was terrifying for me because you have no idea if someone is watching you or aware that you've just found their stash. The police come, you have to have to show them where it is and that further highlights your involvement to any of the local kids watching you." — odakyu11

This person explained that this happened around 20 years ago and that the police weren't really bothered by the things they found.

"Strange people visiting. I worked at the cemetery Jimmi Hendrix is buried at, so lots of weed and people hanging around. We found a dead homeless man behind a mausoleum, smelled him first.

"One time, getting ready to bury a person, we dug a grave. It was in a section of the graveyard that had very old burials (100+ years), so wooden caskets. My foreman at the time was squaring off the hole with a shovel, then he saw a skull looking right at him. He quickly and quietly pushed it farther into the dirt and told us not to say anything. If the office people had found out, it would have been a whole thing. Digging it up, trying to figure out who it was, etc. Never saw a ghost, but some of the old-timers say they did. Not sure if I believe them. Lots of other stories, but that stands out." — ShootPplNotDope

It is uncertain whether the person they found dead was murdered or died of natural causes. Celebrities graves can attract many people, and for some people, they can become places of pilgrimage.

"I worked part-time at a Jewish Cemetery in reception/office management. [On Friday] we heard a loud commotion by the cemetery entrance which was locked. The office manager went to see what was going on and made me come with her. We went down to the gate to find an older woman (probably around 70) dressed to the 9's begging us to let her in. She kept saying she needed to get back.

"We couldn't open the gate without the Manager. We brought him to the gate and no one was there. We looked at video footage of the entrance and you could see us talking but there was no one on the other side of the gate. The cemetery manager thought we were trying to trick him. I swear to this day we saw a woman in a fancy dress outside that gate. I don't know if it was a ghost or what." — Pof_no

If I was that manager I would have been convinced they were trying to trick me! I wouldn't be walking the grounds on my own any more though regardless.

"I used to mow the lawn at a cemetery as part of my summer job. I always volunteered because it was the only place I could work with my shirt off and try to fight my farmer's tan. Anyway, the only creepy thing is that coffins must break and fill with dirt over time because once and a while you'll be walking and sink up to your knee in a small sinkhole on top of a grave. Didn't really bother me unless I was walking at a good pace but some of the other people would get freaked out by that." — PeaTearGriphon

How would you not be freaked out by that? I can't imagine that happening to me and my only thought calmly being, "Oh, bother." I'd be screaming and sprinting away before you could say consecrated ground.

"I was a tombstone caretaker for a cemetery in rural Georgia. One night I was doing my rounds, and I had to go into the small mausoleum. Right off the bat, something was off, the air was pretty damn cold, during the summer in Georgia. There was a light coming from the mausoleum, and as I approached, I heard voices, laughter from a child, a little girl, I thought it was simply younger folks? However, as I got closer, the voices and laughter died, like almost instant. The light I also noticed had gone out, I call the lone security officer that does a few rounds on the lot, cuz I'm not gonna go in alone [...]

"We both go inside, see one of the doors to the entombed remains of a young girl, open... nothing was disturbed within, a doll lay on the stone beneath it, [we] do a small sweep, it was only one floor and one room [...] we close the door to the girls entombment and leave. As we walk away, we get about 30 feet from the mausoleum, and then all of a sudden, voices and laughter again. I jump, and officer friendly looks to me, looking pretty shaken, says to me 'you hear it too?' We look back, and boom, lights back, laughter continuing. We don't go back and just book it, I found out the next morning, the door was open again, this time the doll was on the other side of the mausoleum from where we found it the night before." — Freddie30234