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Tales Of Decapitated Riders (Cyclists; Motorcyclists; Etc.)

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Anonymous

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There is a so-called haunted area near a little town called Port Perry, which is about an hour outside of Toronto. The story goes something along the lines of there was this guy who loved this girl, but someone wasn't happy about them being together and so they strung up a piece of wire across the snowmobile track where the young man always rode his snowmobile, with the idea of knocking him off the snowmobile as he rode past and then beating the snot out of him. Anyway, they placed the wire too high so when the young man rode his snowmobile by he ended up getting decapitated. And now roams the tracks on a phantom snowmobile and you can see the taillights everynight.
Now, I've been out there, and yes, there is something that kinda looks like it could be snowmobile tailights. However, I believe I've heard the story before. Once with a motorcyle, once with a bicycle. And neither had anything to do with the place in Port Perry.
Now, this author who has written all sorts of books on haunted locations through out Ontario included this place - along with the story in one of his books. So when I brought up the question of the story just being an urban myth he got all snippy, saying he'd done a lot of research. (Side note - My dad owns a book store and this guy was doing a signing there, in case you wanted to know how I met him.)
I'm sure that this is a really common urban myth, or else I'm really delusional.
Has anyone else heard of it?
 
Sounds like a possible 'ghost light'. These are usually associated with the ghosts of headless rail workers/hoboes/etc.. Quite common in the USA.
 
I seem to recall a similar story in a novel called Kinflicks by Lisa Alther that I read many years ago in my teens! Can't remember why the trap was set though.
 
I'd never heard this story before, but apparently it's well known among Ontario ghosthunters. Different versions involve either a motorcycle or a snowmobile. Sometimes the rider is decapitated, sometimes not.

http://www.torontoghosts.org/durham/ppghostroad.htm
http://www.pararesearchers.org/Ghosts/gstrd/gstrd.html

"For decades (possibly much longer) people have been reporting strange and inexplicable phenomena occurring on 'ghost road' The most common of these is a mysterious white 'light' (the headlight of a motorcycle according to legend) and a smaller red 'light' (the taillight). Other anomalous phenomena include the sighting of 'ghostly beings', cars being pulled forward and backwards, electrical anomalies, batteries draining and equipment (i.e: cameras) malfunctioning, ufos, strange sounds, and other assorted odd occurrences."

It's a classic ghost tale, involving two of the most interesting categories of hauntings, 'Road Ghosts' and 'Spook Lights'.
Thanks for posting it!

PS. I assume the author in question was John Robert Colombo?
 
"PS. I assume the author in question was John Robert Colombo?"

It was the guy who wrote "Haunted Ontario". Can't remember his name of the top of my head.
 
I was chatting with my friend over lunch today and he told me about an alleged newspaper report regarding a motorcyclist involved in a gruesome accident, a head-on collision with a truck or something similar. Anyway, when the ambulancemen/firemen got to the scene they found the rider's body under the truck. When they looked, the body was headless and, you guessed it, they found his head still in his helmet which was lying a few yards down the road. :cross eye

I would have believed this except I remember hearing a similar story a while back. When I asked my mate if he had read the story himself he said no, but one of his friends had said he had.

All sounds like a UL to me.

Can anyone shed any light on this?
 
Can't say I am familiar with that particular variation. However there are several versions of the cyclist or motorcyclist being decapitated by something falling off a truck, but the body still riding the bike a little further up the highway. Generally causing carnage amonst the onlooking drivers!

But hey, Jango Fetts head didn't stay in his helmet, why should anyone elses? :D
 
It probably has happened, and more than once. The neck isn't teribly strong, really.
 
It was quite common practice during WWII to decapitate motorcycle scouts on both sides by stringing piano wire across roads. Invisible and quite lethal.

The most famous fictional example would be probably Steve Mcqueen "aquiring" a bike in this manner from a German Soldier.

A small extract from an article about James W. Carroll, a motorcycle scout in WWII

Riding out ahead of his unit, Carroll was literally on the leading edge of the American advance across France. It was a dangerous place to be. You never knew when you’d run into the enemy hiding out in a farmhouse or setting up anti-tank guns to slow the American advance.

If the Germans who were dug in at those locations didn’t get you, the piano wire they strung across the roads behind them could. Worse were the snipers they’d leave in the trees to cover their backs.

“You could hardly hear anything,” Carroll recalls, “so even if they missed the first time, they’d get another shot at you.”

Sometimes the Americans sighted the enemy on the move, retreating as fast as they were advancing. Other times the German soldiers held their ground, forcing battles over this small town, that crossroads or even a single farmhouse.

Put it all together, and the life expectancy of a motorcycle scout was measured in days. But the job they did was vital to the American forces.
Click to expand...
 
I heard that story with a twist - they couldn't find the head. When the guys came to clear up the mess they found it further away - to cap it all, the worker who found it recognized the head... It was his son:eek!!!!:
 
You'd have thought he'd have recognised the bike, or the clothes first really wouldn't you
 
Well, according to this UL the workers were clearing up the remanants - the body had gone and, I presume so had the bike. Totally FOAF, told by a council worker who 'knew a worker who knew a worker etc' :)
 
I'm afraid there are many pictures of decapitated motorcyclists online,
with or without helmets. You know where to look. :cross eye

One very slightly related tale is also, I think, true. I think I read it in the
memoirs of a forensic scientist. It concerned a woman who was found
in a country lane with dreadful sexual injuries. But inquiries stalled
until someone noticed that some of the bruising resembled a bicycle
tyre-print.

At this point, they stopped looking for a sexual maniac and started
looking for a cyclist without lights, probably drunk, who had driven
into the privates of a squatting, urinating woman, also drunk. :eek:
 
Yes, I read that one about the urinating woman too. I think it is one of the autobiographies of the Scotland Yard pathologists from the mid 20th century. Not at home so can't check at present.
 
A girl I knew at university told me she saw something similar when she was at school. Guy smashed into a lorry, helmet came off, she and her friends saw there was still a head in it. It happened next to their school and they were watching through the fence.

The way she told it was very serious and I believed her.

pinkle
 
The woman killed by a pushbike is featured in 'Forty Years Of Murder' by Keith Simpson.
Not a recommended bedtime read.

Hasn't there been another thread on this subject?

I remember a motorcyclist being decapitated by a wire strung across Llandudno promenade at 1am during a summer season in the mid-70s. He was a chef returning home from workinig in a hotel.

This was reported in the newspapers around a time when I holidayed there, probably 1975.
 
I heard a similar tale a couple of years back only this time it was a bus doing the beheading. A lot of people were talking about it but it never showed up in the local papers...
 
You'd think we'd be up to our arses in heads by now, wouldn't you?
 
Another variant - I nearly got a scaffold bar in my head. A truck with loads of overhanging bars decided to pull out when I was overtaking it! The bars were at head height and I had to duck to avoid the buggers. And that's no FOAF, it was me.

Probably loads of storys like this as the head is vunerable on motor bikes.
 
My manager rides a motorcycle. But then if he lost his head it wouldn't really make any difference. Nobody would notice.

pinkle
 
There was an unfortunate racer at the Isle Of Man TT one year who lost his head. Someone/thing startled a horse in a field by the side of the road. The horse bolted and jumped a fence just as the guy in the race was passing by. Most of him and his bike went under the horse but his head failed to clear it. The commentator was heard to say "oh my god there's been a terrible accident...." before transmission was cut.
 
That just reminded me of a friend who had a brush with a Horse.

He had a kwacker 500 racer and found a bridge in the country side that he could, with enough speed, get airborne on. Well over he goes a, and as he lands he sees two horses (riderless) in the road. Shit, he thinks, but luckily gets between them, only to see a third horse. Bang! he and bike (less expensive fairing) in one field and Horse running off in another field with a painful bum.

Luckily he didn't lose his head.
 
bulldog said:
There was an unfortunate racer at the Isle Of Man TT one year who lost his head. Someone/thing startled a horse in a field by the side of the road. The horse bolted and jumped a fence just as the guy in the race was passing by. Most of him and his bike went under the horse but his head failed to clear it. The commentator was heard to say "oh my god there's been a terrible accident...." before transmission was cut.
Click to expand...


Unfortunately it was the air ambulance that startled the horse, it had just arrived to pick up a injured rider.:(
 
Wot about

There was an episode of Night Stalker that dealt with a beheaded cyclist from a gang who is killing people while searching for his head.

The episode mentions the wandering headless from the French Revolution... could that be the origins of the legend?

Good eppy, by the way.
 
A motor-cyclist / decapitation accident happend near my house four years ago (while I was on holiday).

The buy had taken drink/drugs and hit a roundabout an nearly 100mph, he was decapitated when he hit a signpost.

I've no doubt that it has happened a handfull of times.
 
Nonny Mouse said:
The inevitable snopes link.
Click to expand...

Cheers.

Snopes say this UL first surfaced in 1978. Was that after the release of The Omen ? I can't remember the film in detail but wasn't a priest decapitated by a sheet of glass falling from a truck ?

Is it possible some wag saw the film and decided to embellish the scenario by adding a motorbike ?

Either that or this UL is the brainchild of the car industry.
 
And it was David Warner as the journalist/writer who was decapitated. The priest was impaled.
 
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