The Five Most Frightening Creepypasta Stories

The internet has spawned many fun and fabulous user-driven sites over the years. However, there’s one that’s guaranteed to frighten: Creepy Pasta. Creepypasta (a mash-up of the words ‘creepy’ and ‘copypasta’ – viral copy-and-pasted content), has been around for several years, and over that time, has generated some legendary paranormal tales.

Here’s a round-up of some of the most terrifying.

The Most Frightening Creepypasta Stories

1) The Goatman

Monsters are frightening enough when you know they’re ‘out there’, silently watching, hunting you down. They’re infinitely scarier when they’re among you. Anansi’s ‘Goatman’ plays upon the idea of strange creatures infiltrating the group, with terrifying consequences.

A group of teens are out in the woods, when they notice a strange, coppery smell, which is so strong it makes one girl vomit. Suddenly, one of them points out that there had been an extra person in their group, who had now gone. So far, so creepy. More teens start vanishing. But who’s really who they say they are; and who is the shapeshifting Goatman in disguise?

You can read the full version here: Goatman Story.

2) BEN Drowned

This story is one of the most famous (succeeded only by the legendary Slenderman, perhaps). It’s got a lot of appeal for the tech-savvy generation, mainly because it focuses on a popular Zelda game – Majora’s Mask.

According to the story, a lad at college purchases the game from an old man. When he loads it up, he notices a file saved as ‘Ben’, which he ignores. After all, who wants to play someone else’s game, right? As he plays, the game starts to glitch, with various characters referring to themselves as Ben. Curious, the boy opens the file labeled Ben, which turns out to be a big mistake. Music plays backward, he keeps teleporting back to Clock Town, and the entire town is always empty when he got back there.

The cause? A boy called Ben, after being drowned by his father, haunts the game, and communicates via strange glitches and messages such as, "You met a terrible fate, haven’t you?’ just to freak players out. Nice one, Ben.

Read it here: BEN Drowned

3) 1999

This is one of the older creepypastas, dating back to 2001. It’s a lengthy story, with several ‘entries’ written by Elliot, a boy who used to watch some weird shows on Channel 21. At the time, he thought they were standard kid’s fare: cozy programmes for younger viewers. However, over time, those shows got dark. The focus is Mr. Bear Cellar: a man wearing a bear costume who invites kids to come to his house.

Elliot’s curious, so he requests an invite, which, to his delight, he receives. When he visits the house, instead of being greeted by a bear, he encounters a policeman instead. A lucky day for Elliot. In his adult years, Elliot re-investigates the TV show. All he finds is a nightmarish tape of a man burning innocent children to death, before incinerating the bear suit. After that, Elliot wisely decides to leave the investigating alone.

Check it out here: 1999

4) Annora Petrova

Hands up: who’s Googled themselves in the past? Well, Annora Petrova’s tale is a lesson to all of us, to not be quite so interested in our details online. A high-achieving ice-skater, she discovers a Wikipedia page about herself, which strangely claims she’ll win a skating competition the following day.

To her amazement, she does. She also wins other competitions – as predicted by the Wikipedia page. However, one day it predicts she’ll lose, and in desperation, she logs on and changes it. Turns out that was a really bad idea. The page starts predicting all sorts of unpleasant events (such as her parents dying), until it hits her with the final harrowing curse.

Read on here: Annora Petrova

5) The Russian Sleep Experiment

This "true story" was so convincing that it had many people fooled, including some newspapers. It focuses on a sleep experiment: keeping five participants awake for 30 days solid, by pumping a specially developed gas into the sealed room they were kept in.

After five days or so, the screaming started. However, a few days later, and they’d all gone eerily silent. Unnerved by the situation, the researchers started pumping normal air into the room. Then they opened the room early, after hearing one inmate whisper that they, "Didn’t want to come out." They were confronted by scenes of unbelievable carnage. The participants had peeled off one another’s flesh and stuffed it down the ventilation shaft, and set about eating their own abdomens. They were also hellbent on staying awake at whatever the cost.

This one’s not for the faint-hearted – you can read about it here: The Russian Sleep Experiment