Very scary cemetery story

I know a lot of ATSers love a scary story. This is not just another ghost or haunting story. It has off-the-chart high strangeness.


This story was told by a caller on Art Bell C2C radio in the early 90s. A friend of mine has hours of these shows on tape. This show dealt with ghosts and hauntings. The woman who told the story was very intelligent and seemed sincere and believable.

She lived in Iowa, and had relatives that were farmers in Iowa and Missouri. As a teenager, she would visit her cousins, and often stay a couple of days. She had some relatives in rural Missouri who had a large farm. There was a very spooky abandoned farm about 2 miles from her cousin's place. A house, barn, and several buildings just completely abandoned and falling to ruin. Near the farm was an old abandoned civil war era cemetery that according to her, was incredibly scary. She described it very well, and suggested it would have made a perfect setting for a horror movie. It was absolutely surreal. It was totally abandoned and neglected, with weeds and wild berry bushes, a couple of broken statues, an old wrought-iron fence and gate, and gnarly, dying trees.

While staying with her cousin on an October weekend, they were hanging out with a local boy from a nearby farm. He had just started driving and he had an old pickup truck. Around 10PM, the girl's cousin (who was pretty daring and adventerous) suggested they go visit the graveyard. She described the graveyard scene as creepy beyond belief. A full moon completely illuminated the area. They went through the gate and proceeded a short way inside, then stopped because they were too spooked to continue.

After a few minutes, she thought she saw one of gnarly old trees moving strangely. It wasn't very tall, maybe 5-6 feet. It was to her left, about 50 feet away, and slightly up an embankment on the edge of the graveyard. She gasped and told the others, and they all began watching the tree. Her cousin and the boy said they didn't see any movement and commented "it's just a tree." She kept watching, and then grabbed her cousin's arm. "I swear it's moving!" They began watching the tree intently, and to their utter disbelief, it actually looked to be slowly morphing into a sort of humanoid figure. Over the course of about 3-4 minutes, the branches became like twisted, spindly arms, and the whole tree began slowly twisting. The boy said "This can't be happening!"

It then began moving towards them very, very slowly. They ran through the gate, jumped in the truck, and took off. The girl and her cousin were too scared to even look back. They were probably in a state of shock. Later, the boy told them he looked in the mirror as they were driving away, and saw the thing coming toward the gate.

My takeaway from this story is that there may be spirits or entities that are very territorial about the places they inhabit.
These things don't like to be disturbed at all, and will frighten intruders away. What I found most bizarre is how the thing took so long to take form. Like it wanted to scare them away, and not harm them. I wonder what have happened if they had stayed there? I got the impression it just wanted them to leave.

a reply to: ColeYounger

I love a good story, but for me, this one falls flat. Maybe if I heard her tell it. It just to me seems strange, a mutant tree?

Cool story, thanks for sharing. Im guessing they never went back?

a reply to: ColeYounger

what I find bizarre is how they are in rural Missouri, riding an old pick up truck to an abandoned cemetery at 10pm and there is not a single shotgun in the story. I know its not mush against ghosts but still, a 12 gauge gives some feeling of security against a slow moving tree

Sounds like Slenderman

a reply to: ColeYounger

i wonder why the alledged cemetry is not named ???????????????

Based on it being dark, full moon, tree at the top of an embankment, 50 feet away, and it taking numerous minutes to 'change form', I suspect it was the position of the moon moving, and causing the tree's silhouette/shadow to change slightly. Makes way more sense than a tree turning into a person.

I think I remember reading a creepypasta with a plot like this.

originally posted by: dalepmay
Based on it being dark, full moon, tree at the top of an embankment, 50 feet away, and it taking numerous minutes to 'change form', I suspect it was the position of the moon moving, and causing the tree's silhouette/shadow to change slightly. Makes way more sense than a tree turning into a person.

These paranormal events with incredibly high weirdness factors don't "make sense". It's always good to make every attempt to find a logical explanation. Sometimes there isn't one. We want very much for there to be one, but there isn't one.
If you read some Jacques Vallee, Barry Taff, or John Keel, you'll realize that paranormal and supernatural events occur that can't be explained logically. These events seem to be extremely rare, which adds to the strangeness.

originally posted by: slapjacks
Sounds like Slenderman

Except Slender Man is much taller, over 10 feet tall and wears a suit. Not to mention why the heck would Slender Man be in Missouri of all places? Slender Man lives in the forests of Washington State and British Columbia Canada, there's no way he would be in some random little cemetery in Missouri. Plus, these were teenagers, Slender Man targets exclusively children.

originally posted by: iplay1up2
a reply to: ColeYounger

I love a good story, but for me, this one falls flat. Maybe if I heard her tell it. It just to me seems strange, a mutant tree?

I gotta agree with this poster, sounds to me the boys were just messing with the girls. Like most little boys do scare girls by playing pranks or hyping stuff. I'm going to have to call BS on this. Maybe the kids were high, who knows. Trees do move by the way, just really really really #en slowly. Look it up, it's true.

Spirits are usually where the people die not a lot of people die in a cemetery. That's from an undertaker.