An object detecting apparatus includes an emission unit that emits measurement light to a monitoring area in a travelling direction a vehicle, the monitoring area being widened radially in a vehicle width direction; a photoreceptor unit that receives reflected light of the measurement light from a plurality of directions in the monitoring area; a detection unit that detects a distance to an object in each direction in the monitoring area, based on a time difference from emission of the measurement light to reception of the reflected light; and a determination unit that identifies the object detected by the detection unit. The determination unit determines whether there is a probability of the detected object being a hill, based on a change of the detected distance in the vehicle width direction among the directions in the monitoring area.