Happy Halloween everyone! In addition to our other spooky Generation Ship bounty, here's a fun festive challenge suggested by two of our community members. So thanks HakunaYourTatas and Tryohazard! We've got a massive $560 worth of rewards to offer here, and there are three tiers of reward:
$3 for text entries
$5 for images (must be authenticated via social media using the instructions below)
$8 for videos (must be authenticated via social media using the instructions below)
In brief, we want you to tell us about and/or show us the most horrifying or creepy things you've found while exploring the galaxy. If you enter with an image, be sure to add some explanatory text so we know what we're looking at and how you came across it.
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In Elite Dangerous, there are a terrifying encounters and mysteries that I have stumbled upon while exploring the vastness of space. Here are some of the spookiest and scariest encounters that the game has to offer:
The Thargoid Encounters
Thargoids are an ancient alien species with advanced bioengineering and a violent history with humanity. They were dormant for centuries until they suddenly re-emerged, catching players off-guard.
When I encounter a Thargoid ship, the game goes into full horror mode. A massive, flower-shaped alien craft emerges, accompanied by eerie sounds. The Thargoid ships are massive, and they’re often hostile. Watching their green, toxic clouds and biological weapons disintegrate your ship can be terrifying, especially for first-time encounters.
Mysterious Structures and Barnacle Sites.
Scattered across the galaxy, these alien sites show evidence of Thargoid activity. They’re strange, organic structures with unknown purposes, thought to be some kind of alien resource.
The structures emit strange sounds and can sometimes trigger Thargoid activity. Discovering them feels like uncovering forbidden knowledge in a horror film. The eerie atmosphere and sense of alien presence make these sites feel truly otherworldly.
Unknown Artefacts and Probes.
These alien artefacts were scattered throughout space, often found in obscure places. They seem to emit strange sounds and interfere with nearby systems.
If I collect an Unknown Artefact, ship’s systems begin to fail, accompanied by disturbing, garbled sounds that resemble distorted voices or crying. The sounds are actually encoded signals that can be translated into eerie alien messages, adding an extra layer of unease.
Once, quite a long time ago, I suffered a typical episode of ‘fear of the unknown’ searching for geological signs on one planet out of the thousands in the bubble.
I remember that, after starting the descent to the surface of the celestial body through its darkest part, I tried to orient myself but I could not see the ground...
The feeling of terror at not knowing where I was was similar to wandering down the street trying to get home on a dark, foggy night. I couldn't shake the feeling that at any moment I was going to crash into the elusive surface.
When I managed to land, I was not able to differentiate hardly anything, not even a few meters from the cockpit... I obviously thought about leaving that terrifying place, I was not going to get off the ship under any circumstances...
And then I saw those shadows, those ghostly figures... without a doubt something was lurking outside on the surface...
With panic invading my body I thought about ascending quickly and leaving that place... but instead I quickly turned on the ship's lights and... ¡¡¡¡OMG!!!!...
The Spookiest thing that ever Happened to me was my First Thargoid Hyperdiction.
I mean i saw it from the Guy who got the First one ever in the Game, but to see it first and foremost by myself is a completely other thing.
A Hyperdiction is when the got u out of the Hyperjump to another System.
U couldnt do anything against it then..
U lose Control in the Hyperjump, wobbling around in Space.
Then u Jump out and the Ship turns Completely off.
After that u hear an awsome Sound who gives u a eerie Alien Feel. Then u see it, from the Left side of your Cockpit comes this Thing and stands a Few Meters away from your Cockpit and looks at u. After a Moment u get a Thargoid Scan and that was it. It Fly away your Ship comes alive again and u can see how it jumps away in the Space Between.
Honestly this was on ef the scariest Moments i ever had in a Video Game.
Once upon a time, lil ol cmdr lLyyssoll was being greedy harvesting meta alloys while listening to metallica. I was there for hours that day just racing back and forth getting the alloys to sell to the highest bidder. On my way to off the planet to head back to bd-21 214, i heard these weird sounds around me as i exited the atmosphere. To my surprise, I look over to my right and i see two thargoid scouts racing towards me and i got this weird static interference and my systems began to faulter. I boosted as much as i could and began to jump. I didnt see them after that first jump but trust i had my cheeks clenched hoping i wouldnt be killed before i could get to base. This was just before the beginning of the thargoid war and that was the last time i went harvesting meta alloys.
My first Thargoid experience was a terrifying encounter. 3 of us multicreed up, thinking we were invincible heading out to shoot some aliens.
We were dragged out of witchspace, lights flashing and strange sounds. Everything shut down - we were helpless! Finally the ship rebooted, there were these things flying around everywhere. The fighter barely scratched them, the turrets couldn't move fast enough.
I know this topic was already mentioned here but for me the scariest thing was my first Thargoid "hunting". When I've barely know anything about this game, I've quickly learned about other species and the Thargoids. It was nearly 3 years ago, I've checked where you can met them and went to the Pleiades sector, totally without knowledge about Guardian weapons, non-human signals (I only knew that in the Pleiades region they can randomly interdict you when jumping between systems) so I was completely blind 😅
When I finally got interdicted (hyperdicted but I didn't know that word back then) I was completely terrified about this encounter and couldn't stare back from the Interceptor to always keep an eye on it. If I could compare this to anything, for me it was like encountering a Leviathan for the first time in Subnautica game. Only he and me, surrounded by the void.
Unfortunately I don't have any picture of that encounter but continuing Thargoids topic, one of the scarier things to explore alone are the Thargoid Surface Sites. It is surrounded by the creepy music and ambient, with only Scavengers patrolling and guarding this place.
Entering the structure alone, followed by a dense fog, feels like entering a Xenomorph nest or something like that. But all that fear disappears after activation of the Thargoid map inside it, and after that, it becomes one of the most beautiful spots in this game.
Those pictures were made in different timestamps but I've showed them together to keep the narration 😇
Technically we were looking for images of the moment itself. But you're reasoning is solid and those images are just too good! You get the higher tier of prize. Thanks for sharing!
One of the scariest events I had was when I was on my way to Beagle Point. I had already left the bubble (I don't remember how many light years away I was from the bubble) when during one of the jumps I made I was intercepted by a Thargoid. I was in an ASP Explorer with no weapons, just dedicated to exploration. When the Thargoid intercepted me I thought it was going to finish me off and that I had to do the whole trip back again. It came close to my ship. It stood still looking at me. I stood still looking at it waiting for it to start attacking me. However, after a while of looking at each other it started to move away. That gave me the opportunity to turn around and move away to continue my trajectory towards Beagle Point.
I assumed it was another kind of “non-hostile” Thargoid, different from the ones in the bubble.
My most terrifying encounter in the game wasn’t with a vicious alien or a ruthless pirate. Nor was it from running out of fuel in the cold expanse of space.
No… that day, I was sitting in my exploration vessel, discovering a black hole in the game for the very first time. I was mesmerized by the effect on the light, and without realizing it, my ship was slowly being pulled in. Back then, I didn’t know that black holes were harmless in the game.
Black Hole
When my ship started heading straight toward the black hole, I began to panic, thinking I was about to be swallowed up. The worst moment came when I switched to the external camera for a better view—it sent chills down my spine.
Ever since then, I’ve done my best to avoid getting too close to these cosmic anomalies.
For me visiting Ghost Ships is brings a horror feel, These abandoned vessels often have eerie audio logs that tell the tragic stories of their crews. Exploring these Ghost ships can feel like stepping into a horror movie with the dark and silent corridors and the sense of an unseen presence
I think the fear I felt is familiar to all explorers of our vast galaxy who dare to unravel its mysteries and find the unusual in that shimmering dark depths.
During my first trip to one of the dust clouds, on my small but brave Diamondback Explorer, I visited many planets and everything went quite smoothly, I then just in case I attached a shield (very and not in vain) until I met an interesting looking planet and decided to land, entering the atmosphere and planning went quite well and deciding to make screenshots not far from the surface (10-20 meters) I went to a free camera..... that's what I thought at first, until sharply on the afterburner did not crash into the surface of the planet (it turned out it was a view in the cockpit) .... though I was able to survive with 54% of the hull good shield took the brunt of the damage, BUT bricks had time to put postpone.
Frontier's Halloween events have been pretty scary over the past few years. The Holloway Biosciences event (the one with heat-seeking flesh-eating alien spiders) was pretty good, but I liked this year's event too. It features a treasure hunter and the ghost of a famous pirate. It doesn't end well....
That was my experience at the Point of Interest 'Bug Killer', the famous crashed Anaconda.
It is a well-known POI for farming manufactured materials, and when I was engineering my Stealth Titan Bomber Python Mk2, I decided to pay it a visit. Everything went smoothly; I flew to the planet, followed the coordinates, found the site, landed, deployed my SRV, and started collecting materials.
However, I forgot one thing: this crashed Anaconda was shot down by a Thargoid Interceptor. While I was sitting comfortably in my SRV, I suddenly heard a strange sound and noticed some odd green lights and a red dot on the radar. I looked up and saw a Cyclops hovering above my ship, scanning it, then the crashed Anaconda, and finally my SRV. I was terrified because I didn't even have basic knowledge of how to fight an Interceptor. But luckily, after it scanned everything, it just left.
At first, I thought it was a Thargoid squadron (and a hidden Titan) heading directly towards me, a defenseless exploration build. I took the record and was almost running away and screwing my pants, when I realized these insects wouldn't be where I was, in deep space. So I came closer to discover it was a stunning combination between a Rubicudum Lagrange Cloud filled with organic Mettalic Crystals.
I was out on one of the guardian sites trying to figure out how to even activate the obelisk, aimlessly wandering around the site just shooting things getting bored then suddenly, I hear this humming buzzing sound around me and i look over with my turret and it turned out i shot the drone on accident and started a minor war which then brought me to find out how to activate the obelisks...but i was pretty freaked out when i heard this sound in a dark environment by myself while it was night time..
This was my first encounter with Revenants, the biomechanical drone-like sentinels which patrol Thargoid-occupied human settlements: having signed up for the then new “AX Restore” mission type, with very little experience of “AX” except being hyperdicted around Maia a few times before, I ventured forth, not knowing quite what to expect…
We’d seen some surveillance footage already: the search lights glowing eerily in the distance and beams cutting through the night… the strange screeching noises, sounding like something organic, yet unnervingly metallic… though no one had yet returned from an occupied settlement?
...they didn't stop coming! Whatever they were, there were endless waves of them - just eerie glowing green lights drifting about in the distant dark at first, they'd turn an angry red and became very aggressive if one got closer... crazy, screeching, dancing lights, chasing one around the settlement - with kilometre long energy beams that sliced through shields and seared even a reinforced Dominator suit... one could barely see the creatures themselves: you still didn't know what you were really engaging with at all!
Having survived a few skirmishes, destroyed several of the sentinels, but the overhead ships still spawning more, I hastily retreated to my SRV to rearm... and rethink my approach... I changed to a Maverick suit and sneaked back in to the settlement... hiding on a roof top, well out of sight I hoped, I launched my camera drone to try to get a better look at the beasts themselves...
They were patrolling almost everywhere, their search beams lighting up the deserted settlement streets with that ominous green glow... any contact with it would send them into that flaming red frenzy! How in Orion's Belt would I get to the power centre to complete the restore mission?!
...later on, carefully avoiding that ubiquitous dreaded green glow while the sentinels' attention appeared to be trained elsewhere, I sneaked into the power centre, cutting the door lock as quickly as I could, with beads of sweat running down my forehead...
For me it was the first time I visited a Thargoid Surface Site, that later we get to know that it was a fallen Titan probably. In my visit, reaching there and seeing everything dark with pale lights and a greenish fog gave me chills, and the small vessels around the site let me unsure how safe was that place.
I don't have more footage but I managed to enter the structure because Thargoid Probe with me (destroying slowing my SRV) but I didn't knew at the time how to activate the device, but was frighting ride in those corridors with wall that resemble more a living been than an building.
It was an experience fantastic and scary, I was in the unknown, invading the enemy territory and thinking that I could be attacked at anytime. Now I try to return this sensations to the Thargoids, scaring them destroying one by one!
Exploring Thargoid surface sites at night is one of the spookiest activities in Elite Dangerous. From the green speck of light seen as you approach the planet, which slowly reveals itself as a gigantic Geiger-esque structure as you descend, to the cathedral-like interiors that set the imagination wild with notions of the horrors that once lurked in its chasmic halls and corridors. Intriguing puzzles conspire to keep you there just long enough for the chilling atmosphere to creep under your skin, and you'll never be as happy to get back in your cockpit again as you are when you escape the foreboding gloom of this ancient, monstrous place.
Some say the Thargoids are the scariest entities in the game but for me one of the spookiest places in elite : are the Guardian Structures. The atmosphere is deadly, you feel the age, you see the scope of the buildings, you can not imagine the scale of the ones who made them.
you feel that you are being watched at all times, and the sound designers worked hard to make it the most believable sound you can hear.
one of the first times I went to one of this Structures to unlock the technologies they guard, in that moment where you approach the Terminal I felt the Ground is shacking under my feet In real life, an those good headphones didn't help either, on top of that it was late at night in the summer, a really calm short night, I can tell you for sure it almost got me to the hospital.
And here is a short video of it, stay safe out there CMDRs . O7
Without a doubt the scariest moment for me was my first encounter with the Thargoids, I wasn't expecting it, I was traveling quietly, slightly distracted doing other things on the computer when suddenly my trip stops and I'm literally in front of two Thargoid ships... It was desperate, believe me...
I unfortunately didn't manage to record this moment (probably because I wasn't even touching my controls at the time it happened as I was totally anesthetized hahaha, but I did manage to take a picture).
After immobilizing my ship and scanning me, they just left, just like that! It's all very curious, but it was scary and remarkable too!
Beside the spooky story that we've been reading from this year's scav hunt ship log, Thargoids in genereal and their Spire Sites are one of the most spookies spots you can find in the bubble.
A friend of mine and myself, we're both aspired AX hunters, though that wouldn't make the goids less scary for us, we have decided to push forward and build us some ships that are effective to destroy the Titans. We heard about how good Guardian Shard Cannons could be against them, only if they were engineered with Ram Tah's "Anti-Guardian Field Resistance", and in order to obtain them, we need to fetch him some Thargoid's Tactical Chips.
We did our study and find out they can be obtained from Thargoid Revenant. "A piece of cake" - we said as those are just small little baby goids, and headed to the site.
As we were approaching, the spire towers look terrifying, you can even spot them as you are in orbit, like giant spooky skyscrappers. And when you get close, all kinds of eerie noises can be heard from them.
As we're approaching the ground, hiding from the scouts and interceptors, other things started to show up on my radar. "Must be our targets", I said, as I started deploying my landing gears.
Suddenly I heard a "boom" sound, and a screech, my ship was turned off.
It was a Banshee.
Now I knew that Banshees aren't a threat either, they are also smaller goids, also I have seen their bobble head models, they look a bit... scary, but I guess they aren't not that dangerous.
My ship turned back on, and I boarded the SRV. And that when I saw the Banshee upclose for the first time.
It was bigger than I thought.
It looked way scarier than the bobble head model I saw at those livery stores.
And it's not harmless.
It only took 20 seconds for it to deplete my ship's shield, and 20 more seconds for it to blow up my explorer ship. I knew I was a fool to go in here without a proper AX combat ship, I thought without the interceptors, these guys are not really something to worry about. I was wrong.
I started blasting the Banshee on my SRV, it took forever, it seemed to just scratch it a little bit. The revenant started to show up as we're getting closer to the towers. And one more time I was wrong for underestimating the Thargoids.
5 minutes later, we're in our SRV trying to run away and shooting them at the same time, hoping they would die so we at least could get the chips, even if we came back without a limb or two. The laser they shot melted down my shield in seconds, and there were only two of us. One combat SRV, one exploration SRV, I was on the latter, as I was too lazy to get a combat SRV, now I know that I should have gotten one.
Somehow we escaped, as my friend was smart enough to dismiss his ship as soon as we landed. We boarded it, and boosted away and engaged supercruise as soon as we heard the "beep" from mass lock indicator. "How is this an SRV activity?" My friend said. We got no chips, but at least we got to keep our bodies intact.
Since that day, we'd never leave our ship when there's a Thargoid near to us. Even the Scouts look gigantic when you are on your feet without some multi cannons. We're lucky we didn't get destroyed, but that was one of a kind spooky experience.
I've had a couple of scary encounters with black hole systems with a neighbouring star. Jumping into the system, I didn't realise the primary body was a black hole and I've smacked right into it. Then, when attempting to exit the hole's influence after aligning with the escape vector, my ship's heat would skyrocket. That in turn would cause heat damage and further degrade the FSD. The excess heat may have been from the hole but also with the neighbouring star being so close, I wasn't sure.
On one occassion, I already had a badly damaged FSD due to excessive neutron boosting and the fear of an FSD restart and heat damage eating away at the hull made for a stressful experience. There was nothing quite like the early days of exploration, jumping around without a clue. The game might have Thargoids running about, but being out in the black and on the brink of death is one of the scariest things to deal with I think.
The first time you deal with thargoid encounter is very scary, you're flying along peacefully and simply your screen starts flashing, the screen shakes and an extremely frightening sound echoes and the ships appear, incredible and frightening at the same time the incredible immersion the game puts you in.
I don't have a recording of my first encounter, so I'll use one from youtube to exemplify, feel free to go to the link and give prestige to its creator:
One of my scariest experiences was entering the Thargoid surface site... it was a very dark place, and it was very strange to enter this base, because it has organic walls and it felt like you were entering the interior of a living being... As well as some drones that I wasn't sure what they were going to do with. It was scary!
