I have a few, most of the time (I've only been inside a few buildings) it ends up chilling in a room or a rooftop after exploring. One specific building we would go probably about every day during the summer, super low-key, ride our e-bikes in, and you're good. Nobody cares about the building. Except for the village workers. These fuckers knew we were in there and were straight FBI searching this place for us, I don't think I have ran faster before lol, I just didn't want to get trespassed from the spot. I'm sure more experiences will happen and I've had a few others, including near death. What are yours?

I was in Yonkers Power Station and was walking on the stairs when I fell through into the Hudson. It was Thanksgiving day. I sank and sank and sank I eventually surfaced only to find there was no way up or easy way up, my first thought was "I always heard drowning was not a bad way to go" I was with a piece of human garbage/shit that didnt come to help me. I eventually found a pipe and pulled my self up and hyperventilated for a while and then calmed down...Stuff does happen..

Posted by dundertits I sank and sank and sank I eventually surfaced only to find there was no way up or easy way up, my first thought was "I always heard drowning was not a bad way to go" I was with a piece of human garbage/shit that didnt come to help me.

Holy shit that is terrifying. That would turn me off from exploring a lot of buildings probably. I already have a phobia involving structural integrity and I've barely explored. Glad you're still around and we get to hear the story. I'm curious, and if you dont mind me asking how long ago was this? Did it cause you to stay away from exploration for a while, or were you just more cautious. Definitely a story to tell, thank you!

As the sun began to set, our group of friends made our way to the abandoned ghost town of Wingo, deep in the marshes of California. We had heard rumors of the town being haunted, but we were excited to explore it nonetheless. As we parked our car and began the 4-mile trek into the town, the sky grew darker, and soon we were walking in complete darkness.

As we made our way into the town, we stumbled upon an old, decrepit building. Without any warning, a man's voice boomed out from the darkness, "Get the f*** out of here, you f**k faces!" We were startled and immediately turned to run, but we could hear the man's heavy footsteps getting closer and closer. He was screaming that he had a gun and that he was going to kill us.

Our group became separated in the marshes as we tried to escape, but the man continued to chase us, his screams echoing through the darkness. We ran through the marshes, our feet sinking into the muddy ground as we desperately tried to outrun him. We could hear him getting closer and closer, his screams becoming more and more frenzied.

Just as we thought we had lost him, we heard his voice again, closer than ever before. One of my friends shouted for us to run again and we sprinted through the marshes, our hearts pounding in our chests. We could hear him crashing through the underbrush behind us, his screams growing louder and more maniacal.

We were all able to find each other and ran for hours through the marshes. Every time we thought we had lost him, we could hear his screams and footsteps getting closer, until we had to jump into the creeks and swim to escape. We were finally able to outrun him and get back to our car, but we were all shaken and terrified by the experience. Our clothes were ripped and we were covered in mud, but we were just grateful to have escaped with our lives.

Posted by JBUrbex Holy shit that is terrifying. That would turn me off from exploring a lot of buildings probably. I already have a phobia involving structural integrity and I've barely explored. Glad you're still around and we get to hear the story. I'm curious, and if you dont mind me asking how long ago was this? Did it cause you to stay away from exploration for a while, or were you just more cautious. Definitely a story to tell, thank you!

It was 2007, and yes I didnt do it for a while and got introduced to EMDR, it just wasnt my time to go , I found out later that day I had hit the back of my head on the way down good thing I didnt get knocked out I am not sure how far I fell couple of flights maybe and under yonkers I was...in the black black darkness wet and flailing around

When I was sort of newer to all of this, I decided to go with my sister to a heavily police-guarded abandoned asylum with little preparation and in broad daylight. Great idea I know. After about an hour inside, from a top story window we noticed a cop car circling the building we were in, as well as some cops on foot surrounding it. She was petrified, and I didn't really know what to do so we sat and waited for maybe 45 minutes. After the sun set, we decided to make a run for it and got out through a hole in the fence. The scariest part was at the end when a cop who was about 50 yards away from us turned his head right as we came out of the gate. We were about 1 second late of some serious trouble lol.

Posted by ghosthunter1234 As the sun began to set, our group of friends made our way to the abandoned ghost town of Wingo, deep in the marshes of California. We had heard rumors of the town being haunted, but we were excited to explore it nonetheless. As we parked our car and began the 4-mile trek into the town, the sky grew darker, and soon we were walking in complete darkness. As we made our way into the town, we stumbled upon an old, decrepit building. Without any warning, a man's voice boomed out from the darkness, "Get the f*** out of here, you f**k faces!" We were startled and immediately turned to run, but we could hear the man's heavy footsteps getting closer and closer. He was screaming that he had a gun and that he was going to kill us. Our group became separated in the marshes as we tried to escape, but the man continued to chase us, his screams echoing through the darkness. We ran through the marshes, our feet sinking into the muddy ground as we desperately tried to outrun him. We could hear him getting closer and closer, his screams becoming more and more frenzied. Just as we thought we had lost him, we heard his voice again, closer than ever before. One of my friends shouted for us to run again and we sprinted through the marshes, our hearts pounding in our chests. We could hear him crashing through the underbrush behind us, his screams growing louder and more maniacal. We were all able to find each other and ran for hours through the marshes. Every time we thought we had lost him, we could hear his screams and footsteps getting closer, until we had to jump into the creeks and swim to escape. We were finally able to outrun him and get back to our car, but we were all shaken and terrified by the experience. Our clothes were ripped and we were covered in mud, but we were just grateful to have escaped with our lives.

I swear this is straight out of a horror movie

Being attacked by a maniacal pole-wielding Belgian farmer in an abandoned house to then escape and find his wife slashing our car tyres is well up there.

Also falling through the rotten top floor of a hotel in the Catskills, although I personally found that whole situation more funny than anything.

So did you guys drive back with slashed tires

Posted by mookster Being attacked by a maniacal pole-wielding Belgian farmer in an abandoned house to then escape and find his wife slashing our car tyres is well up there. Also falling through the rotten top floor of a hotel in the Catskills, although I personally found that whole situation more funny than anything.

Holy Crap !! Glad you made it out!!

3 years ago my friend and I arrived near a location in a more rural type neighborhood at 7pm, it was already dark and raining outside. We parked about a kilometer or two away from the entrance to the minimum security prison and walked to the location along the road. It being dark and raining we had our flashlights on so cars could see us and so we didn't look suspicious skulking around in the dark.

Well as we were nearing the entrance a guy on a quad rides up behind us asking what were doing there, we explain a walk around the neighborhood and headed to the park further down the road. He backed off and followed at a distance then all the sudden 3 vehicles race up the road and block us in while the guy from the closest vehicle gets out and holds a baseball bat to my face asking what the **** are we doing out here, meanwhile 3 more guys surround us. We explain we're out for a stroll but they called bs...so we pulled the honesty card and told them our interest in the prison and showed them some of our equipment and they still called bs. Our stomachs sunk! They explained there's been alot of breakins/ect in the area and the whole neighborhood banded together to stop it and the whole nieghborhood knows we're there and want answers. As we're slowly talking our way out of it there's cars racing up and down the road. They asked us tons of questions of who we are, where we live, asked for our driver's licenses (which my buddy gave but I didn't. He was satisfied that my friend willingly gave his for a looksee.) Eventually they allowed us to leave and escorted us all the way back to our car.

We went back to my buddies house and unwound after that with many beers in the hot tub lol! We were pretty shaken. And remember this all took place on a public road before we even tresspassed!

Basically all of my worst experiences over the course of nearly 2 decades of exploring have been during big urbex meetups. Which is very unfortunate and makes for awkward situations and so much drama. I'm not saying *all* big meetups went to shit but yeah unfortunately basically all of my worst experiences have been meetup related.



Back in 2009, I walk up to the meetup location and mere feet in front of me a chunk of concrete explodes on the ground. I go up top and find that there were people carelessly chucking concrete off the roof. You know how much drama it stirs up with people when you dare speak up? A lot.

Next one was really stupid. I went to a location far from home during a meetup and reach out to tell one of the main organizers where I was planning to go first, see if he had any intel on the guard situation. I knew the security was pretty rabid going in. Guy just tells me to stay away from the guard shack. Ok cool thanks. No hints as to where it was, but I can figure stuff out on my own. Just thought maybe some more useful information might be imparted. We arrive, get about halfway through exploring it and I get a text back from the dude that the big group is going to meet us there. Ok.. The group shows up and one of them was wearing flip flops and a bright neon colored shirt and about 100 lbs heavier than a typical explorer/athletic person. No judgement on the weight but I mean if there's rabid security on-site then this guy climbing around stuff wearing neon and visible to the guard shack.. might be a problem. SURPRISE, it was a problem. Next thing I know we're in the top of the thing when we notice the guard is hanging out at the bottom near the entrance. One of the party waves at said guard. WTF. Soon there are multiple police cars all piling up around the entrance. We wait.. and wait.. and wait. Finally the cops leave but the guard is still seething and driving around randomly, going back to his guard shack, talking on the phone. We're inside a thin steel walled building and members of the group are smashing beer cans, knocking them around, etc making all kinds of noise. I can fucking hear the guard talking on his phone so I know he can hear our dumb-asses. The main person in the group that was friends with the organizers is ADAMANT that we wait for them to come "rescue" us. Like WTF man. How is another group of people trespassing here going to rescue us? Can't we rescue ourselves? We wait and argue a little and wait some more. I can't talk any fucking sense into these people so I start having my good comrade keep an eye on the security guard while I try to make my way down and out. Finally he tells me the guard went back inside and I immediately head down the very exposed stairs to the next level to see about finding a way out. I get halfway to the other end of the structure and hear some commotion. I think well fuck they really are coming after us and I duck and hide. Finally they get close enough and I realize it's the "rescue" squad. Like wowee guys, we sure couldn't have gotten out of here ourselves, huh? /s So we make a pit stop on the way back to regroup and naturally the main person from before has been shit talking on us to the organizers and we get a stern talking to for not following orders. Sorry but suck my balls. Everything was fine til the group showed up and we could have been out hours ago had it not been for the weird insistence of waiting to be rescued. We bailed on most of the rest of the meetup and instead headed to a nearby city, explored a bunch of shit and had a blast and only came back to sleep in the hotel we had already paid for.

Next one in the story was fucking incredible and we had good time all night long... until the very end. Some local stupid/insane mf's were fucking with people camping out near the party spot. They apparently had a history of shooting homeless with BB guns and burning their camps, etc. Well they're fucking with our people and my good comrade confronted them and told them to get the fuck out of here. They went to their vehicle and grabbed a gun and a compound bow. They came back looking for my comrade. I had no idea that had happened and was merely on my way out with one of the organizers when these two fucknuts approached us threateningly with weapons drawn. Guy I was with, thankfully, kept a cool head and calmed these scumfucks down enough to not kill anyone. It also helped that my comrade was busy loading his gear in his vehicle separately from where these two assclowns were threatening us. Eventually those two guys left us and we headed to the car where my comrade was and left.


The next one was aided by my experience in prior clusterfuckery which helped me to avoid all the bullshit. So I show up 30 minutes after the event was supposed to begin. It was being held in a cave very visible to the road. As I'm walking the sidewalk at 11pm, some dumbass in an SUV drove past repeatedly yelling "cave party". I politely suggested they shut the fuck up but they didn't. I get to the entrance and there's a long line of people waiting to squeeze in. Like easily 20 people all standing around very obvious to all traffic. I'm already basically ready to bail at this point but trying to convince myself not to leave because this was the main social gathering and I'm trying to be a little less anti-social than I am normally. Well, I'm standing in line and I notice that most of the people in line are.. not dressed like they're waiting to go into a cave. Few of them strike me as "explorers". But what set off my red flags and alarms was the fact that there were two girls in line who very much appeared to be minors. They were young, I'm guessing 15, and they also didn't have a single hint of explorer about them. I decide alright, fuck this shit. I'm not squeezing into a cave to hangout with randos and minors. So I left. In the morning, I awoke to find my phone blowing up from the chats with cops, firetrucks, bulldozers, etc. Apparently some kid wasn't home in time and their parents called the cops. From what I understand, the entrance was bulldozed once they got everyone out. Not the organizers fault, the place was known to the locals and word spreads fast. But still. I'm feeling very much done attending any meetup in which randos or noobs are out in numbers.


There was one time at a favorite semi-active location we had explored dozens of times without permission. And then one day an official tour was posted on a message board. So this wasn't an official "urbex" meetup, but it was as close as you can get. We show up and go in. No sign of trouble. But things start to go south. Tour guide is running into locked doors and making us turn around. WTF bro, you're the guide! We finally get on the right path which I knew well. I'm trailing the rear, taking pictures and chatting with the next guy when we get to the basement or sub-basement. It was pitch black. I catch up to the group and immediately have a gun pointed in my face. I'm told to get against the wall. I assume we're being robbed. We have our hands up against the wall with guns pressed firmly in the backs of our heads. Fight or flight mode going hard. I FINALLY see the glint of a badge on a uniform. They're fucking COPS. Hiding in the dark, pulling guns on people. There were like 30 cops there, it was ridiculous. Finally they lead us back outside and the owner is there all proud telling us not to do this and to not come back. We paid like 5 bucks each to go on this tour and the guide was nowhere to be seen.. until he accidentally walked into the room where this was going on and I immediately call him out. We ask for our money back, they try saying some dumb shit like take it up with the courts and we're all "he has it ON HIM right NOW!". So finally he's forced to hand each of us our money back. Why the fuck they couldn't stop us BEFORE we went inside or why the fuck a bunch of cops all agreed to hide in the fucking dark and hold people at gunpoint without ever identifying themselves.. these are things I can't understand.

One time in New York state, we hiked about 6 miles through some rugged terrain to the location to avoid being spotted by locals. After exploring the location for a while, we encountered some other people inside who had just shown up and parked right out front. Which annoyed the shit out of all of us in my small group who took precautions and hiked a long ass way to avoid that sort of situation.. so we left a little sooner than planned but luckily that was the end of the drama.


Outside of big meetups, the drama has been of the more manageable and expected variety one would encounter when trespassing:

There's been a few times where I've been inside the building while the owner showed up and I had to make an escape. For example: at the Memphis Marine Hospital the owner showed up in a front loader and was blocking the entrance we had used earlier. But his loader was making so much noise and he was so occupied that he didn't notice us exit the basement just over his shoulder and run across the courtyard to make our escape.

Another time the owner or caretaker showed up and was entering their alarm code into the pad near the front door as we were just down one flight of stairs from them, so we had to silently open a basement window and slide out and make a run for it.

There was a time my comrade "fell down into a hole" under a manhole and I spent the next 4.5 hours working out his rescue. Basically we mis-judged the distance to the ground and he let go of the rungs and fell further than expected, toppling backwards down this pile of rubble. Amazingly he was not seriously injured but now he was stuck. He started doing the only thing he could do, which was build up the rubble pile to get enough height to reach up to me. He successfully added a couple feet to it in the form of a very wobbly platform of bullshit. I had some stupid thin ass ropes that were of almost no use but he was able to grab them to help stabilize at least. I held onto the bottom rungs and took off my belt, re-clasped it and lowered it down to him. Realizing that wasn't going low enough, I then straddled the shaft of the manhole, putting all my faith in a couple bricks around the edge. He grabbed the belt and I lifted him up above my head to the rungs. We would have been totally fucked if we both fell in, but while on the surface looking for ropes or anything useful in my vehicle, I let a family member know what the situation was and where they could find us if they didn't hear back within a couple hours. Lesson I learned here was to always have rope and never fucking do stuff like this alone.


But sometimes I still do go alone. I explored a funeral home alone once during a storm and sure it was spooky and there were noises, but I investigated each one and found that it was water dripping or wind blowing this or that. Sadly, no boogeyman.

I think that's all I got.


PS
I didn't call anyone out by name or location so don't come at me with some drama about the meetups I've (accurately) described. I don't hold any random group of organizers responsible for the shit that happened and I don't have any hard feelings to the organizers, etc, when miscommunication and other shit happens. It just happens a lot more when large groups of people congregate. If you think you know what meetups I'm referring to, please just keep it to yourself. I'm not into drama and I'm only sharing stories of "crazy experiences" for the entertainment aspect. I'm not naming names or throwing anyone or any event under the bus. True stories shared for entertainment purposes only. If we can't be entertained by our own failures then we're just lame.

Posted by dundertits I was in Yonkers Power Station and was walking on the stairs when I fell through into the Hudson. It was Thanksgiving day. I sank and sank and sank I eventually surfaced only to find there was no way up or easy way up, my first thought was "I always heard drowning was not a bad way to go" I was with a piece of human garbage/shit that didnt come to help me. I eventually found a pipe and pulled my self up and hyperventilated for a while and then calmed down...Stuff does happen..

Wow oh wow that is fucking terrifying. Genuinely one of the most stressful things I've ever read.

Scariest thing for me was definitely being blinded by barrel mounted flashlights while 5 cops pointed rifles at us for trespassing in a dumpy abandoned school.

It probably should be the time I was wasted at a party and a floor grate gave out under me, I heard the pieces of it hit the floor a few seconds after I managed to land myself on a concrete pad. Unfortunately, I was too intoxicated to care as much as I should have.

I've had some exciting moments, like opening a control room door and hearing the workers bullshitting inside. My heart was pounding the whole way back to the car. But I don't see that as scary as much as it was kinda fun since we got away.

I've had a lot of "oh shit" moments during my eight years exploring, but here's some recent ones from the past year:

---

Over the summer a friend and I were checking out a mining ghost town in deep rural Utah, well off the beaten path and ended up getting into a brief car chase with a really pissed Alex Jones lookalike that ended with us getting run off the road and screamed at for several minutes while his kids looked on. I swear to god, if it weren't for the fact his kids were in the car with him I think he would've pulled a weapon on us.

---

Just a few weeks ago, myself and roughly ten other explorers were attempting to access a manhole in the middle of a somewhat busy railyard late at night. We had to cross about fifty yards of open ground with a cliff-like hill to our left and the railyard to our right, with almost no cover along a road. As we were moving towards the manhole a railyard cop rounded the corner from behind a train and started driving straight towards us. We had no choice but to climb a small embankment to the cliff wall, curl up in the snow, and do our best impressions of rocks while hoping he somehow wouldn't see nearly a dozen people wearing dark clothing in the white snow. Miraculously he didn't see us, despite passing within 10 yards of us.

---

About a month ago, I was exploring an abandoned monastery but started to get an uneasy feeling inside. I looked out the windows and didn't see anything amiss outside, but decided to leave anyway. Just as I was about to exit, I saw a shadow move around the corner and someone yelled "This is the police, come out with your hands up!" Somehow I managed to talk my way out of a ticket despite getting caught dead to rights, though frankly it was mostly luck and a combination of a bar fight and a multi-car pileup across town giving them bigger things to worry about.

---

Last week I was exploring a mine and talking to some friends in a cavern, when the vibrations of our voices knocked a softball sized chunk of the ceiling loose- and it came down three feet from my head. Had it hit me, I'd have likely died.

---

A friend and I were exploring a storm drain in Denver, and the forecast predicted a 0% chance of rain. Unfortunately we didn't account for rainfall in the mountains flowing down into town, and as we were inside the water level started to rapidly rise. It was around our ankles when we entered- by the time we exited it was knee high and still rising fast at a rate of about an inch per minute.

---

A freak flash flood in a valley known for drought and the resulting road collapse nearly trapped me in an abandoned necromancy cult compound. I had to drive through several inches of floodwater and on the right lane of a road where the entire left lane had collapsed into a 15 foot deep, 1/4 mile long sinkhole. I actually did a full writeup on that one.

---

Over the summer, several Colorado explorers and I were attempting to access an abandoned mine near the top of a mountain shrouded in clouds, well above the tree line on a massive scree field. Suddenly we heard a strange cracking thunder above us, and I looked up just in time to see a boulder the size of a pickup truck break through the clouds above us before it slammed into the slope so hard that I could feel the mountain vibrate from the impact. Fortunately it was still a few hundred yards away from us, though that doesn't feel like much with rockfall that large. We encountered that a few times during that trip, and the moments before the boulder broke through the clouds above us when we weren't sure where it was coming down were always incredibly tense.

---

Oh, and I was also at two of those big meetup busts SubLunar talked about. It turned into a whole Big Thing both times, though like SubLunar said the problem were party-crashers, not anything the organizers did- and that's all I'm going to say on that particular subject to avoid starting drama.

Posted by EsseXploreR Scariest thing for me was definitely being blinded by barrel mounted flashlights while 5 cops pointed rifles at us for trespassing in a dumpy abandoned school.

I think one of my urbex fears is this. I live barely just from the border with most of the buildings I've explored been right on the borderline or within a mile from the border, I do not want to be mistaken for a border jumper. There's been a few times chilling on a rooftop and all of a sudden, a helicopter is in the distance, and we shoot to the basement of the building in case they are searching for someone with thermals, the occasional headlights of border patrol pulling into the parking lot of the building we are on the roof of at 2 am gets scary, you don't know if they are there for you lol. Most of it is probably paranoia but better be safe then sorry. I

Why the fuck they couldn't stop us BEFORE we went inside or why the fuck a bunch of cops all agreed to hide in the fucking dark and hold people at gunpoint without ever identifying themselves.. these are things I can't understand.
\


Holy Crap what a trip!!!!

This thread is off the hook!!! very interesting!!

Scariest thing for me was definitely being blinded by barrel mounted flashlights while 5 cops pointed rifles at us for trespassing in a dumpy abandoned school.

It probably should be the time I was wasted at a party and a floor grate gave out under me, I heard the pieces of it hit the floor a few seconds after I managed to land myself on a concrete pad. Unfortunately, I was too intoxicated to care as much as I should have.

I've had some exciting moments, like opening a control room door and hearing the workers bullshitting inside. My heart was pounding the whole way back to the car. But I don't see that as scary as much as it was kinda fun since we got away.


Damn those cops!!

In 2016, there was an earthquake in southeastern Korea. Not that major, but it was near some nuclear plants, while there was still a lot of fear about Fukushima.

So there was a large-scale earthquake drill run way up in Seoul, at an abandoned apartment complex I was familiar with. They were blowing up buildings, moving around armies of volunteer victims, using mannequins for casualties.

I visited shortly after with a friend on a rainy October day, and as we were wandering around, I came across a field of bodies and body parts. It put me in a fugue state for about half a minute.

It wasn't realistic-looking bodies or anything, mostly just mannequins of various styles.

My companion approached the same way I did, not looking at the right area until the last minute, and she also had her breath taken away.

Rather than share a bunch of stuff, you can read more about it here if you want.

Maybe it helped prepare me for the next time I faced a more real situation last year.

By the way, I don't know how you guys do it in the US, with such trigger-happy cops as well as other people.

I went to an abandoned building with 2 other friends at that time, we ran into some scrappers inside. At some point one of the friends left and I was still in the building with the other friend. I was trying to leave too but my other friend wanted me to help one of the scrappers carry their big bag full of scrap metal and as we attempted to help him we saw 2 other people come into the building with their flashlights on and they yelled out "POLICE" but luckily my friend and I were hidden behind a big pillar but the scrapper got scared and ran away but the 2 police officers didn't see me and my friend because they were after the scrappers but we stayed perfectly quiet. I whispered to my friend "when they go into that room, let's high tail it to the door", so we waited for the police to walk into that room, then we ran to the door and we got our asses out of the building and we ran across the lot, got out of sight and we didn't get caught. I'm not going to lie to you but it was scary and I shouldn't of attempted to help a scrapper with their bag of metal. If I would of got caught doing that, I would of gotten into serious trouble.

This happened a couple years ago when I was still living in Arkansas. From other explorers, we had heard legends of a house that was abandoned in the 70s and the owner was an architect. They told us about all the old blueprints he had hand drawn so we wanted to go check it out. We got the rough area of where to look and found a bando in the neighborhood we were told it was. We were idiots and parked right next to it. Hindsight 20/20 right? Anyways, we make our way in through a broken window (was broken before we got there) and begin exploring. The house was amazing and we spent about 30 minutes in there searching for blueprints. We finally end up giving up because we had been through every inch of that place. So we leave and are walking across the front of the house and notice a shed. We thought we might as well go check it out since there was a chance the blueprints could be in there. We get in and the floor is littered with books, magazines, and receipts from the 60s and 70s. Not even 60 seconds into being in the shed. We hear "WHO THE F*** ARE YOU GUYS". I whip my head around to see down the barrel of a pistol with a light right next to it as he was in a tactical position. He yelled for us to turn our lights off (later I thought that if we had startled him by shining the light in his eyes, there is a good chance he would have shot, but I can't be sure of that). After explaining that we were just trying to check out an abandoned house and not cause any harm he let us walk back to our car. However, he never took the pistol off of us until we started driving away. It wasn't a police officer for sure, but to this day we don't know if it was the property owner, a concerned neighbor, or a squatter that we had unknowingly walked into his residence. Needless to say, that was quite the rush.

I have also been in multiple caves with signs of rituals (candles, pentagrams, and such), but never had any personal encounters with people or members in them so they were more eery than they were scary.