If these type of things are still happening there must be dash cam footage. I suspect a lot of people still write it off and carry on.
I don't think that anything would necessarily show up in dashcam footage, in genuine cases - or perhaps just an ambiguous blur.
But if it was an optical illusion of something that was actually there it would.
I'm interested in whether all optical illusions would be captured on camera. Isn't part of the 'illusion' the brain imposing its view of what it is seeing onto something far more innocuous? So the driver might be interpreting oncoming headlights shining on a wet road as a 'figure' because of pareidolia and the necessity for having to process things much faster when driving than the brain can comfortably cope with - so a dash cam won't show anything at all.
There was a couple in a car who actually turned around and went back to get phone footage of a man hitchhiking at night but who was stood on the wrong side of the road and was completely motionless and emotionless. The couple were quite spooked out by this but it wasn't the 'photoshopped-image-of-the-ghost-of-the-Victorian-maid-who-committed-suicide-by-jumping-off-the-tower/in-the-lake-after-being-banged-up-by-the-Lord-of-the-Manor-and-caught-on-camera-by-a team-of-ghost-hunters-with-infra-red-night-vision-equipment-and-a-spirit-medium' and so the whole thing was soon forgotten...
To be honest, the 'emotionless and motionless' sounds more like drugs to me.
I walked quite close to the crash site on Saturday, walking the Wey Navigation towpath, which runs close to the A3 at Burpham, and this case did pop into my head.
What're you like?I walked quite close to the crash site on Saturday, walking the Wey Navigation towpath, which runs close to the A3 at Burpham, and this case did pop into my head.
Unfortunately, your link is just displaying "this video is unavailable".
Edit... it helps if I actually read your email in full...
The location is just off the southbound carriageway "about 100 yards before the slip road" - this is almost certainly the Burpham turnoff (numbered 1 below) - the video mentions thick woodland but this is incorrect, it was most likely the overgrown boundary between the road and the fields to the south, a narrow strip of trees and undergrowth. There is room for some Fortean doubt, because some articles mention the "emergency slip road", a little further north (I've numbered this 2). I think 1 is the likelier location, since Nuthill Farm is not mentioned at all in relation with this case.What're you like?
The Wey Navigation walk looks lovely.
You might like to show us the spot on the map. No rush, right now'll do.
We read about these interesting events but it's usually hard to pin down the location without local knowledge.
You know how to please a girl.
I know this road and drive it often, this is a famous case . People had called in reporting just seeing a car crashing off the road - multiple reports - and when the vehicle was found it was a skeleton in the driver's seat and had been there about 4 to 6 months? I have a book of Guildford hauntings and the author of this also does a brilliant ghost tour. Highly recommended if anyone is there at a loose end of a Friday night
I grew up roaming over Dartmoor (well, occasionally, it wasn't like I lived in a tent on Haytor or anything, but it was our chosen destination for days out) and the Hairy Hands were notorious back then. We all used to like to scare one another with such tales.I remember the A3 crash being one of the very first "road ghosts" I ever read about - I was waiting my turn in the hairdressers, reading one of those women's reality magazines, and it was in the "ooh spooky!" section. I'm going to guess it was Chat magazine. At the time I was delightfully creeped out and relieved we lived nowhere near that slip road!
My other formative road ghost stories were the Hairy Hands down Dartmoor way, and the driver who hits a young girl on the road. He covers her with a blanket and goes for help, but she's gone when they return and nary a blood stain on the blanket.
I can't remember anything more about the latter case, which I'm guessing describes a few similar road ghost sightings, but the other two are definitely famous.
That was Devon folklorist Theo Brown, a true Fortean who documented so many Fortean tales from the 'old' Devon, including phantom black dogs, sightings of prehistoric figures at Lustleigh Cleave and werewolves reported from the Valley of the Rocks and elsewhere
Dartmoor was never 'that' remote though. The railway went up to Okehampton (which was how we used to access the moor) before the closure (and subsequent reopening) and there was the Pixies' Holt Youth Hostel where it was obligatory for at least one school trip per year, complete with D of E walks and ghost stories. This was all pre M5 days.
Good points, especially as regards population and the railway also reached Moretonhampstead (just 10 miles from the location of the Hairy Hands) although of course there were never as many cars back then.
I seem to remember that at least one of the cases of victims of the Hairy Hands was a motorbike rider.
Edit: arguably Exmoor has always been more isolated, especially as the railway line to Lynton closed in the 1930s
Spot on, Haytor gets so busy, from a distance it looks like it is crawling with ants and there are far more interesting places to visit but which take a bit of effort and so you barely see a soul, for example:
That's true Paul. I cycle all those minor roads (was up there last week) and you rarely see a soul. Plenty of small woods that can be dark and damp even in mid-summer. Many little ancient bridges and small rivers. The topography is so varied, you never know what is around the next corner. Sometimes encounter some strange atmospheres, but no definite fortean events.
, it wasn't scary - but it was extremely atmospheric. No other traffic at all, only the dark moors and me. Must have looked really weird from a distance - just a head travelling above the mist!
I may have mentioned before, during my Uni days in Plymouth, how a friend and I drove up to Dartmoor one night and parked up on the side of the road not far from Princetown. We were going to tell each other ghost stories but it was actually so damn scary just sitting there in the car in the pitch black that we thought better of it, started the engine, put the lights on and drove back (probably blaring ZZ Top all the way).That's true Paul. I cycle all those minor roads (was up there last week) and you rarely see a soul. Plenty of small woods that can be dark and damp even in mid-summer. Many little ancient bridges and small rivers. The topography is so varied, you never know what is around the next corner. Sometimes encounter some strange atmospheres, but no definite fortean events.
A few summers ago, I was returning home to South Devon from Tavistock driving my motorbike. I reached Two Bridges sometime after 9pm as dusk became actual darkness. The first mile or so out of Two Bridges (on the B3357 to Dartmeet) resembles a plateau. There was thick mist, but only to around 4 feet off the ground - exactly like a Hammer Horror film - which spread as far as I could see in all directions. There was, literally, a silvery full moon that illuminated everything in a soft light. This, plus my headlight, meant I could still follow the road.
When you enter a situation like this, you realise it is a total one-off. All those things happening at the same time. I've certainly never seen mist like that before or since. Even though I realised I was awfully close to the Hairy Hands road
