Man Spots Terrifying Figure in Parents’ Yard: ‘Sleep With Both Eyes Open’
If birds are disturbing your garden produce, scarecrows are usually the first port of call, but a couple has opted for a more unconventional method.
Their son, a 19-year-old based out of Virginia Beach, posted the chilling image taken from the back porch to Reddit 's 'Oddly Terrifying' forum, revealing a haunting figure lurking in his parents' yard.
The figure, however, was not a ghost or ghoul, but something far more unexpected—a silver mannequin intended to deter animals from the garden.
His parents, who own a small dance apparel shop called DanceOutfitters in Chesapeake, Virginia, ended up with an extra mannequin after downsizing their store. Rather than letting it gather dust, they decided to give it a new life as a scarecrow of sorts on their farm .
"I wasn't freaked out at all until nighttime came," the Redditor told Newsweek. "In fact, I thought it was a pretty cool idea, but with the spotlights on it at night, it looks super freaky," he said.
While the eerie look of the mannequin under dark skies might send shivers down the spine of anyone passing by, unfortunately, it seems to have had little effect on the yard's intended intruders.
The user, who asked to remain anonymous, told Newsweek that the local wildlife appears unfazed by the motionless figure: "I think it's just because it stays still. If we got a Halloween animatronic or something, that would work a lot better."
"A family member of ours has a car horn [stroke] buzzer rigged up with a motion detector in their garden, [that] works like a charm," he added.
While the mannequin may not be much help in warding off animals, it certainly managed to spook a fair share of other Reddit users. One of whom advised the original poster (OP) to "sleep with both eyes open" for fear it may come to life.
Another Redditor commented that the mannequin was "definitely deterring me", with others calling attention to how it may look with headlights on it: "I would fully believe I was at the start of a horror movie."
"Imagine looking away for a moment and that thing got closer and closer," another wrote.
The OP told Newsweek that many Reddit users are just as terrified as he was. "A lot of people saying the low image quality makes it scarier," he added.
One user commented that they couldn't stop laughing at the photo of the mannequin: "I'm guessing they realized you can buy a mannequin and spray paint it and scare everything so no one gets to enjoy the garden," they wrote.
The OP replied: "My friends thought it was scary as hell so I decided to post it here."
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This story was originally published September 23, 2024, 4:51 AM.
