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Phantom Hitchhikers & Road Ghosts

Here's one I have literally just found out about, 82-85 time range:

A47 just past Necton towards Swaffham
A young man in dark clothes
As I hit him he kinda come up the bonnet and windscreen and disappeared
Saw his face clearly
Smiling if anything ☺
 
DrPaulLee said:
Here's one I have literally just found out about, 82-85 time range:

A47 just past Necton towards Swaffham
A young man in dark clothes
As I hit him he kinda come up the bonnet and windscreen and disappeared
Saw his face clearly
Smiling if anything ☺
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I've been on that section of road, when I had a friend who lived in Necton.
 
DrPaulLee said:
...Smiling if anything...
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The apparent cheeky grin that seems to occur in some these cases has always struck me as truly odd (I think it's also an element of some of the experiences mentioned in Sean Tudor's, The Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill & other Road Ghosts) - and I can't help thinking that it's redolent of a kind of brutal - maybe even malevolent - playfulness. I find it somehow more resonant of fairy lore than that of ghosts - or maybe echoes of a Trickster, Loki, Coyote, Anansi type of thing.
 
Spookdaddy said:
The apparent cheeky grin that seems to occur in some these cases has always struck me as truly odd (I think it's also an element of some of the experiences mentioned in Sean Tudor's, The Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill & other Road Ghosts) - and I can't help thinking that it's redolent of a kind of brutal - maybe even malevolent - playfulness. I find it somehow more resonant of fairy lore than that of ghosts - or maybe echoes of a Trickster, Loki, Coyote, Anansi type of thing.
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Being a fairly seasoned lucid dreamer, I have a theory about 'the smile' which is often reported in cases of road ghosts. Bear with me...

When I'm in a lucid dream and I meet someone I know in real life, I often say 'this is only a dream, you know.' And very very often, they then turn to me with a smile. It's a very particular smile and hard to describe.

But these experiences have made me wonder whether some of these road ghosts are due to people falling asleep at the wheel, but being half-lucid because of the situation, and their brain dreaming up a human presence in order to warn them to wake up.
 
Had a work event in Norfolk on Wednesday evening, which required me to drive from North Walsham to Norwich quite late at night.

According to the internet, the road I used is known as ‘white lady lane’ because of an eponymous figure who haunts the stretch. Sadly, no sighting of her on that particular night.
 
Has anyone heard of anything on the A534 Wrexham to Nantwich road? I seem to recall hearing/reading about a figure appearing in front of vehicles, but on inspection by the driver, who often thought they'd run someone over, there is nothing there.

'The modern A534 Wrexham-Nantwich road is known locally as Salters Lane. Previously called ‘Walchmonstreet’ or Walesmonsway, it was a route for the trade in salt between the Cheshire ‘wiches’ and Wales’.
 
Floyd1 said:
Has anyone heard of anything on the A534 Wrexham to Nantwich road? I seem to recall hearing/reading about a figure appearing in front of vehicles, but on inspection by the driver, who often thought they'd run someone over, there is nothing there.

'The modern A534 Wrexham-Nantwich road is known locally as Salters Lane. Previously called ‘Walchmonstreet’ or Walesmonsway, it was a route for the trade in salt between the Cheshire ‘wiches’ and Wales’.
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Have you got a link for the quote?
 
I'm not sure whether this is, strictly speaking, a road ghost story, because I can't quite work out whether she's seen from the road, or on it – and I’m not sure if there’s some sort of qualification.

Anyway, completely by coincidence, I just came across a story about the Marbury Lady, said to haunt a park near Northwich in Cheshire. Apparently there was a spate of accidents associated with the ghost in the 70’s, although at least some of this appears to have been associated with pranksters. I couldn’t find a whole lot of sources on the internet, but there’s one pretty comprehensive post here.

The inspiration for checking this out was an article on a regional new website: The story behind the ghost who haunts a Cheshire country park.

Another thing that struck me on reading it: Although there are plenty of statues of people who are reputed to haunt particular places, I’m not sure I can think of another example of a ghost being memorialised with its own sculpture, in its own right, just for being a ghost - if that makes sense.
 
Floyd1 said:
Has anyone heard of anything on the A534 Wrexham to Nantwich road? I seem to recall hearing/reading about a figure appearing in front of vehicles, but on inspection by the driver, who often thought they'd run someone over, there is nothing there.

'The modern A534 Wrexham-Nantwich road is known locally as Salters Lane. Previously called ‘Walchmonstreet’ or Walesmonsway, it was a route for the trade in salt between the Cheshire ‘wiches’ and Wales’.
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I haven't heard anything about a road ghost on that stretch, though I do know all that part of the world quite well.

The last bit of the road into Nantwich from the west is still called 'Welsh Row' - it was the route the drovers took bringing their animals from Wales to market. Lots of ghost stories in the area generally - I'd heard of the Blue Bell 'ghost duck' before.
 

These are from The Paranormal Database​

Sightings with a WW11 flavour but with a leaning towards roads.
there are likely more but didn't want to post to many.


RAF Pilot​



Location: Belsay (Northumberland) - A696, just outside of village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: August 2015
Further Comments: Media outlets reported that Rob Davies and Chris Felton had filmed a figure which resembled a 'RAF pilot' standing on the roadside late at night. Although the footage was poor, the witnesses said the figure was dressed all in beige and held his arm out as if hitchhiking. When they turned the car around and drove back for another look, the figure had vanished.


Hitchhiker​



Location: Felixstowe (Suffolk) - Crossroads controlled by lights
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: For several days, a car driver found himself giving a lift to a Second World War pilot, who would suddenly appear in the back seat of his car when he reached a certain point of his journey. This stopped once the driver started taking a different route.

Three Men​



Location: Great Waldingfield (Suffolk) - Road to Sudbury, close to the public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2012
Further Comments: Three men wearing long coats and large boots were spotted on the road by a driver. Convincing they were going to hit one of the men, the driver slammed on their brakes; the figures vanished, leaving the witness quite shocked. The witness was later told that the area was once a US air base during the Second World War, and that other people had encountered phantom airmen and even heard old aircraft in the area.

Headless Airman wanting Lift​



Location: Hadstock (Essex) - The B1052 leading into Hadstock
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: After losing his head in a flying accident, the apparition of an American pilot has been seen thumbing a lift on the roadside.

US Airmen​


Location: Harrington (Northamptonshire) - Road leading to Lamport
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Heading towards an old USAAF airfield, this car full of military personnel slowly fades from view as travels the road.



Pilot?​



Location: Higham (Kent) - Canal Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Several times in 2010s, between 19:00h - 20:00h
Further Comments: Several dog walkers had seen a man dressed in black with a white stripe on his outfit along this road, his silence when spoken to a topic of discussion between the pet owners. One dog owner then reported that the man had disappeared in front of their eyes and refused to walk his dog in the same area. One person researched the area and found that a German aircraft had crashed here, speculating that the man in black was a pilot.

Hitching Airman​



Location: Kelstern (Lincolnshire) - Road leading to the former RAF Kelstern
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1983
Further Comments: The man dressed in an old RAF uniform tries to hitch a lift to the now ruined airbase. There are also reports of the sounds of an old aircraft in the skies and along the former runways.

Smoking RAF Pilot​



Location: Lakenheath (Suffolk) - Lakenheath Air Force Base, perimeter road
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: Spring 1951
Further Comments: A phantom hitchhiker was seen along the road, dressed as a RAF pilot. An American policeman picked him up, only to find that the pilot had disappeared a few minutes later.
 
Sabresonic said:
My neck of the woods but I can't make much out as the angle is difficult.
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Ah, the Fail. That’s about as desperate as it gets. Doesn’t get any more fleeting or indistinct than that. It really could be anything. Like a post. Why was someone videoing this? It’s not a dashcam - the camera pans round to catch it but fails dismally..

And what was the thing beginning with R it’s dressed in? I couldn’t be arsed to look it up on YouTube. Rags, Red, Raincoat, Regency Clothing?
 
Floyd1 said:
Has anyone heard of anything on the A534 Wrexham to Nantwich road? I seem to recall hearing/reading about a figure appearing in front of vehicles, but on inspection by the driver, who often thought they'd run someone over, there is nothing there.

'The modern A534 Wrexham-Nantwich road is known locally as Salters Lane. Previously called ‘Walchmonstreet’ or Walesmonsway, it was a route for the trade in salt between the Cheshire ‘wiches’ and Wales’.
Click to expand...

After a lot of hunting around, all I can find in the way of road ghosts in that general area is a reference to the A51 near Tarporley being frequented by the ghost of a man and a dog who were knocked down by a vehicle there.
 
I spent a fruitless ten minutes looking for a story I was absolutely positive was on this thread, or possibly the Celebrity Ghosts & Hauntings one (because it involves a couple of well-known names from the music world), only to find it has one of its own: Lost Book On Time Slips Or Road Ghosts.

This was the story I was thinking about (accessible via a link in post #4 of that latter thread - from the book Science and the Spook, by George Owen and Victor Sims:

Science and the Spook – Dr George Owen and Victor Sims

The Haunted Pop Group - A Ghost at Cobham?

THE four members of a "pop group" (a musical and vocal group specializing in the presentation of popular music and songs) called the Peter B's, their leader being Mr Peter Bardens, saw an appearance which very much puzzled them, while they were returning on the A3 to London in a van (driven by Peter Bardens) after an engagement at the Bird Cage Club in Portsmouth. Mr Dennis Bardens (Peter Barders's father) of 3 Horbury Mews, London, W11, took a tape-recording of their evidence (on 27th November 1965) and kindly provided us with a transcript.

Peter Bardens (aged twenty-two) said they were all four sitting in the front of the van and leaving Cobham about 2.30 a.m.

Though there were mist patches in some places on their route, it was a clear (but not moonlight) night at Cobham. As they went round a bend a figure came into view on their side of the road.

“We all saw it simultaneously and, on the realisation that it wasn't an ordinary guy, Mick [Michael Fleetwood, the drummer] sort of screamed. He [the figure] was walking towards us, along the pavement, but he wasn't looking at us. I think Mick got a longer look at him than we did, because I was sitting on the inside. I only caught a flash of it, but I realised that it wasn't an ordinary bloke because he was abnormally big and radiating a kind of pale light; and there were no sorts of lights around, except the ordinary street lamps, which are pretty dim and which could not have produced that effect for an ordinary bloke.
He was a big figure, going on for seven feet. The hands were down at his sides, pointing slightly outwards, as if he were almost marching, except that his arms were parallel and it seemed to be not so much walking as gliding. It wasn't above the level of the pavement; it was on the pavement, and appeared to be gliding, staring fixedly in front, just looking ahead, not at us or the van. The eyes looked to me as though they were probably closed. The whole thing seemed to be a greyish-whitish-yellowish colour.
All four of us realised that it wasn't an ordinary bloke, you know-that it was something horrible. I shuddered, and gripped hold of the steering wheel, I temporarily lost my mind.
Mick screamed, and was sort of semi-hysterical and the other two were a bit shocked. Mick started shouting for me to drive on faster to get away from the thing, while Pete [Peter Green, the guitarist] shouted at me to turn round so that he could get another look at it. But my instinct was to get the hell out of it.
I didn't get such a good look at it; I just knew that it was not very nice. It resembled a man in his fifties. The face made the most impression; there was a big body; it looked just like a great, long overcoat going down to the feet almost. Or it could have been a kind of shroud. It had some hair but I have no detailed recollection of it.”

Mr Michael Fleetwood, the drummer (aged eighteen), when asked how far away the figure was when first sighted, said:

“It appeared to be at about fifty to one hundred yards, judging by the time it took to actually see it, to register and then pass it. I was sitting on the left-hand side of the van farthest away from Peter [Bardens] who was driving. And suddenly we were going along normally, we weren't talking about anything which suggested this in any way; and just suddenly I looked up and saw a very tall figure. It could have been about 6 foot 9 inches, nearly 7 feet high, and it had what I would assume to be a very very long coat nearly down to the ground and it was light grey, slightly fluorescent; it seemed to have a light of its own against everything. I was the only one in the back seat of the van.
Thank goodness Peter didn't see its face, you know. I screamed, really screamed; I was absolutely petrified.
The face was so vacant-looking; that was what was so terrifying. It was just a face and it was quite an old face; it could have been about sixty. It was walking straight ahead on the right-hand side [i.e. on the left-hand side of the road relative to the direction of travel of the van] coming towards us on the pavement. It was walking very stiffly in quite a military sort of way. Its arms were moving very deliberately in a sort of straight fashion. It was going straight along and its face-I really saw its face and it was really expressionless-looking straight ahead, forlorn, quite drawn. I didn't see the eyes, but I saw that where the eyes were there was a sort of darkness. He didn't have a hat on. The hair was short. The whole figure, including the head and the hair was this light colour, this light fluorescent grey. But I don't recollect that I could see through it. His overcoat or robe was the same length as a field coat, almost down to the ankles.

Mr Peter Green, the guitarist (aged nineteen), confirmed that he saw the solid figure of a very tall man, walking as though gliding along very smoothly and staring straight ahead without expression. The figure seemed not to notice the van although it passed close to it. He did not at first consciously think of the figure as being odd or inhuman until the others became excited.

It didn't dawn on me straight away but the only thing that made me think it was way out of this world was that it was staring straight ahead and it was so late in the night. We passed him right by and he was just staring straight ahead all the time.
It wasn't really his appearance but just the way that it was walking, very slow and heavy, and like I say it didn’t really dawn on me [till afterwards].
It was a very blank old thing, very light. A tight long macintosh he was wearing seemed to be catching all the street light, so it did look very light. It seemed to have an odd complexion about the face, definitely an odd complexion. I wouldn't say definitely it was a ghost, because there are a lot of weird out, it could have been one. [weird: someone of ultra-bohemian habits, tramp or "beatnik".] The walk was very unusual like something out of a Frankenstein film-great strides-the arms moving very steadily. The macintosh was buttoned up. I couldn't actually see the eyes.
Mike was upset but only gave a weak scream. Peter [Bardens] only just about saw it as it got to the side of the window-it just sent a sort of shudder through him.

The transcript of the evidence reads much less dramatically than the live recording sounds. The latter indicates genuine fear and horror.

We interviewed the boys, including David Ambrose (bass guitar player, aged nineteen), in London on 21st July. Their testimony agreed in all respects with the earlier statements. David concurred with the others in describing the figure as blank, staring, expressionless, of a peculiar pale colour, very tall, walking in such a rigid way as to seem almost gliding, and swinging its straight extended arms in an extremely mechanical and robot-like fashion. They agreed that the night was clear and that the figure was bizarre and unusual enough to be uncanny and frightening.

We enquired from the Cobham police as to various elementary possibilities. They had no record of any fancy-dress ball or party that night. No fair or circus was under canvas in the vicinity. No patient was listed as missing from any mental hospital or ordinary hospital. Indeed there are no hospitals in the district, or monasteries.

Local tradition testifies (somewhat faintly) to the following ghosts. One is that of a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Matilda who lost her footing on the stepping stones over the River Mole and was drowned. Pain's Hill is nearby, celebrated as one of the earliest examples of natural landscape gardening on a large scale. Laid out by the Hon. Charles Hamilton, son of the Earl of Abercorn, it has extensive grounds extending into the parish of Cobham, along the Mole Valley. Hamilton used to pay a "hermit" to live in artificial grottoes, and there is, or used to be, a belief that he still roams at night.

The Rev. S. E. B. Barrington, the Vicar of Cobham, told us that Field Marshal Lord Ligonier was buried in Cobham church. The church is some way from the Portsmouth road and the boys would not have passed near it. Jean Louis Ligonier, a French Huguenot, joined the British Army in 1702 and eventually rose to be Commander-in-Chief. As the first general in the regular Army to treat his troops as better than cattle his memory is still held in affection and respect by the Army. Though not immortal in the flesh he was almost so living to the age of 90, and until the last few months leading a gay and vigorous life.

We sent the boys a reproduction of the painting of Lord Ligonier in the National Portrait Gallery. Two of the boys felt unable to render an opinion; one saw a slight resemblance and one thought there was a strong likeness.
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The book - which I found a copy of after getting involved in the 'Lost book...' thread - was published in 1971, with the preface dated 1968. This, and the fact that it's authored by whatever the post-war version of nerds was, might explain some of the writing (I'm sure we all know now what a 'pop group' is.) That said, it's actually very readable - and the two 'nerds' involved, although they clearly believe in the application of science to such incidents, seem pretty open minded on the subject.
 
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BS3 said:
After a lot of hunting around, all I can find in the way of road ghosts in that general area is a reference to the A51 near Tarporley being frequented by the ghost of a man and a dog who were knocked down by a vehicle there.
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Right.
Normally after not finding any info relating to it, I would have just put it down to my mistaken memory and not bothered to mention it on here, but it's stuck in my mind because (I thought) that after hearing of this ghost, I remembered how a few years earlier I used that road quite a bit at one time. That's why I thought I'd ask you lot.
 
Giant R said:

I 've always been interested in abandoned roads and watch Auto Shenanigans on Youtube sometimes, he has done a video on the old Hindhead road.

Britain's Abandoned Roads - Episode 11 - A3 & The Hindhead Tunnel​

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Here's a photo that a took (in 2011) on the weekend between them closing the road (on the Friday) and breaking up the tarmac (on the Monday), from this photo it's hard to believe how busy this road was with traffic stacked back from the Hindhead crossroads all the way back around the curve - this was also a lethal spot for accidents, the slope on the right hand side is the side of Gibbet Hill, leading up to the gibbet memorial cross, on the left is the steep drop into the Devil's Punchbowl:

Devil's_Punch_Bowl,_old_A3_closed_to_traffic_1.jpg
 
BS3 said:
After a lot of hunting around, all I can find in the way of road ghosts in that general area is a reference to the A51 near Tarporley being frequented by the ghost of a man and a dog who were knocked down by a vehicle there.
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I've often wondered why their aren't more 'road ghosts' of dogs. Given how many get knocked over, and who must wonder what the hell happened?
 
Spookdaddy said:
I spent a fruitless ten minutes looking for a story I was absolutely positive was on this thread, or possibly the Celebrity Ghosts & Hauntings one (because it involves a couple of well-known names from the music world), only to find it has one of its own: Lost Book On Time Slips Or Road Ghosts.

This was the story I was thinking about (accessible via a link in post #4 of that latter thread - from the book Science and the Spook, by George Owen and Victor Sims:



The book - which I found a copy of after getting involved in the 'Lost book...' thread - was published in 1971, with the preface dated 1968. This, and the fact that it's authored by whatever the post-war version of nerds was, might explain some of the writing (I'm sure we all know now what a 'pop group' is.) That said, it's actually very readable - and the two 'nerds' involved, although they clearly believe in the application of science to such incidents, seem pretty open minded on the subject.
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What amuses me is the names - Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green.
 
Sabresonic said:
Don't forgot Foxes, Hedge Hogs etc
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I suppose I don't really think about those much a) because I've never really heard of ghost foxes and ghost hedgehogs anyway and b) how would I know the 'ghost' ones from the real, given their somewhat transient nature?
 
catseye said:
I suppose I don't really think about those much a) because I've never really heard of ghost foxes and ghost hedgehogs anyway and b) how would I know the 'ghost' ones from the real, given their somewhat transient nature?
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I'm struggling now, not to imagine a ghost hedgehog going 'wooo-ooo...' in a really high voice.
 
Dennis Bardens played his tape recording of the interview to the ghost club over 20 years ago. A nice, brief version would have been a good idea but we got the whole lot and it went on and on and on ...
The audience were almost catatonic at the end.
 
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