Phantom Hitchhikers & Road Ghosts

escargot said:
What will happen when the centre cannot hold and mere anarchy is loosed upon the world?
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Too late! ;)

TVgeek
 
off thread..again

There have also been loads of sightings of ww2 bombers etc at airfields, so it looks like inanimate objects have souls too...albeit ones given to them by humans...everyone gives there car/plane a name dont they...
 
Great thread! My commute takes me down country roads most every night, and although I have yet to come across one, road ghosts are my favourite spooks (until I see one looking back at me in the rearview mirror that is!)

My fellow auberge-dweller works as a taxi driver on his days/nights off (his pseudonym on this board is seeker, I'm sure he won't mind me saying). He ain't seen anything on his rounds, but has heard some great stories from his fellow drivers.

One guy was making a u-turn on the outskirts of town one night when a figure came at him from a wall. He screamed for help over the radio before getting his wits together and speeding off. He felt as if the figure was making straight for him and that he had had a close shave, and didn't drive for some time after...

Another guy claims to have picked up an elderly man in heavy rain (out of the goodness of his heart) on a country road. He picked him up just coming into a windy part of the road that goes on for a few miles. They chatted as they drove on through the sheets of rain, having a cigarette together as they spoke of the weather and such. The taxi driver remarked "Lot of people killed on this road". Old man replies "Yeah, I know. Sure I was killed on this bend coming up." Taxi man looks - no old man, cigarette stubbed out in ashtray. Great story!

Another tale involves a couple being swept off their motor bike on a country road by what felt like a gust of wind on a still night. Fortuinately uninjured they picked themselves up and made their way on down the road. The pillion passenger noticed, however, a black shape pursue them to the end of the road. On recounting their tale to a parent, the shocked told of how he had had the exact same experience on the same stretch of road 30 years before.

The last tale involves a man and his wife travelling in a car, when the wife draws her husband's attention to a small old lady combing her hair inthe back seat. Shocked at seeing this to he slams on the brakes, and they both turn around to see no-one there. That night the man dies of a massive heart attack...

All pretty incredible, apart from the first one (I know the guy's family and they are not people prone to lapses of sanity). Still, great stories!
 
Bump! Two Road Ghost threads merged.
 
Something from the local paper

there's a ghost in my minicab!



A CITY cab driver has spoken of a spooky journey after he picked up a ghost passenger.

Arju Miah, who works for Cosgrove-based Fab Cabs says the supernatural experience has left him baffled especially as the female spook paid him in crisp £20 notes.
He said: "I can't understand what happened. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. But the door never opened and I know she didn't get out.
"She literally just vanished."
The 52-year-old father-of-10 said he picked up his unusual fare as he waited outside The Sanctuary nightclub in Denbigh on New Year's Eve.
It was about 3.45am and the girl told him she wanted a lift to Great Barford near Bedford.
Due to the length of the journey, Arju said he asked for the money up front and called into a petrol station for more fuel.
"She was a nice girl. She had pink hair and was wearing a short black skirt and a white shirt. She was friendly and spoke to me quite a lot.
"She told me she had gone to the club with friends in a limousine, but had decided to go home alone because she was tired and her friends wanted to carry on partying."
Arju says he had just got to the outskirts of Bedford when he noticed the girl didn't appear to be sitting on the seat behind him.
He said he turned around, thinking perhaps she had fallen asleep and fallen into the footwell.
But amazingly she had just disappeared.
"I don't know who she was. She was nothing but a ghost. I can think of no other explanation.
"Now I think back her hand was very cold when she gave me the money. She told me it was because she had been waiting in the cold, but she hadn't been waiting that long.
"Other people in cabs saw her get in as well. There's just no explanation."
But after the ordeal Arju said he sought the opinion of his priest who gave him some unusual advice, telling him the incident was quite normal.

not quite sure how to post the link to this story, but interesting none the less :eek!!!!:
 
Re: Something from the local paper

wilbur said:
there's a ghost in my minicab!



A CITY cab driver has spoken of a spooky journey after he picked up a ghost passenger.

Arju Miah, who works for Cosgrove-based Fab Cabs says the supernatural experience has left him baffled especially as the female spook paid him in crisp £20 notes.
He said: "I can't understand what happened. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. But the door never opened and I know she didn't get out.
"She literally just vanished."
The 52-year-old father-of-10 said he picked up his unusual fare as he waited outside The Sanctuary nightclub in Denbigh on New Year's Eve.
It was about 3.45am and the girl told him she wanted a lift to Great Barford near Bedford.
Due to the length of the journey, Arju said he asked for the money up front and called into a petrol station for more fuel.
"She was a nice girl. She had pink hair and was wearing a short black skirt and a white shirt. She was friendly and spoke to me quite a lot.
"She told me she had gone to the club with friends in a limousine, but had decided to go home alone because she was tired and her friends wanted to carry on partying."
Arju says he had just got to the outskirts of Bedford when he noticed the girl didn't appear to be sitting on the seat behind him.
He said he turned around, thinking perhaps she had fallen asleep and fallen into the footwell.
But amazingly she had just disappeared.
"I don't know who she was. She was nothing but a ghost. I can think of no other explanation.
"Now I think back her hand was very cold when she gave me the money. She told me it was because she had been waiting in the cold, but she hadn't been waiting that long.
"Other people in cabs saw her get in as well. There's just no explanation."
But after the ordeal Arju said he sought the opinion of his priest who gave him some unusual advice, telling him the incident was quite normal.

not quite sure how to post the link to this story, but interesting none the less :eek!!!!:
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Quirky little story... Although I would suggest the woman was not a ghost but a simpleton. Didn't she know the whole idea of 'doing a runner' is to disappear before you pay ?
 
Good point.
But then, I havent noticed the local cabbies drumming up much trade since, so I guess as a story it aint done much good.
Forgive my (lazy) lack of knowledge, but do any other road ghosts 'pay up front', or are they generally 'non-paying' hitchhickers? Heard an interesting story tonight about one such 'phantom' leaving a jacket in the back of a cab, so would be interested to know.
 
I pulled up behind a black cab stopped in front of a zebra crossing recently. As a couple of old dears were getting out, a mother with a pushchair and 2 other small kids approached the zebra crossing but didn't emerge from behind the taxi. I assumed they were waiting for the cab to pull off before attempting to cross.
"What??!!" I thought, as the old dears closed the cab door and it pulled away, there was no one waiting to cross the road. The mother and 3 kids were gone!

Very odd that. Didin't "feel" like I'd sen ghosts, but I was totally flummoxed. They family group looked totally normal and were dressed in up to date clothes by the way.
Dan
 
They wouldn't have done that comedy thing of getting into the cab as someone was getting out (through the doors on the other side of the cab). Always a giggle with black cabs

I have a simple life...

:)
 
Ghostly Jaywalkers

In Blather 1.4 I mentioned the exploits of one Sandra Ramdhanie in the Galway Poltergeist case. Well she's back in the news again, exorcising ghosts which are being blamed for a series of road deaths between Navan and Dunshaughlin in Co. Meath (Ireland).

'Survivors have claimed they saw babies' faces pressed up against the windscreen and that the steering wheel was pulled and the car went literally off the road as if unseen hands were pulling the steering wheel.'

Ms. Ramdhanie says that there are energies in certain areas which can affect people's driving. She may be correct in this assertion, but I'm inclined to blame the roads themselves and the people using them. Ms. Ramdhanie, however, is linking the deaths to the alleged burial of foetuses in the area by the 'backstreet abortionist' Nurse Cadden, who was hanged in 1956 after the death of a woman. She has apparently noticed a lot of 'spirits' when visiting the area, and has resolved to carry out a ceremony to help the local residents, which I see as possibly a placebo - a cleansing ritual as such. In principle it's not a bad idea - but it does depend on a lack of cynicism on those for which it is performed, and surely takes away from the real issue - road safety.
[Note from daev, 18/6/2001 - according to an email received from Caroline Lane, who says that Cadden was her father's aunt, Cadden died in prison, and wasn't hanged as reported by *The Irish News*.]

According to the local parish priest, Fr. Kerrane, Ramdhanie has her information rather confused. According to him, the road deaths occurred 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Dunshaughlin, while Sandra Ramdhanie is investigating an area some 4 miles (6.4 km) from the village. He attributes the deaths to black ice, and says that the only association that Nurse Cadden had with the area involved a child she abandoned there, which lived and was adopted. He also reckons that no one in the area had previously linked the road deaths with the Cadden case. (The Irish News)

Source: Blather
 
roadghosts

I have posted this story on another thread somewhere but can't remember which one - it's so totally intriguing that it bears repeating here.

A friend leant me a book which was newly published - it would have been in the early to mid-eighties. It contained IHTM type stories from members of the public and one of the ones that remains in my mind was by a man who was driving his car around some very rural back lanes in North Lancashire. It's an area I know very well myself so that's probably why I've remembered it.

He says that he was driving along a very narrow single track land that was straight for a long way ahead. The weather was cold but clear and he glanced down for a micro-second and when he looked up there was a woman walking slowly in front of his car with her back to him. He had the fright of his life and jammed on the brakes. He was totally confused because there was nowhere that she could have come from - the hedges were very tall and thick - typical of that part of the world. She didn't look round at the sound of a car squealing to a halt behind her and just kept walking. The surreal part of all this however is that she was tall with long dark curly hair, well tanned - and wearing a very revealing bikini and elegant stiletto type flimsy sandals!

The man was absolutely intrigued and tried to drive slowly alongside with the window wound down. He called out to her to ask if she was ok or if he could give her a lift but she just carried on walking and never turned her head. The man said that it was totally unbelievable - he could clearly see the bright modern colours of her bikini and shoes but began to get a very strong feeling that she was not entirely real....

From one second to the next she was there and then gone again. He stopped, reversed several times, but could find no explaination at all. Strange.....
 
This may be a bit of a non-story but here goes.

When my older brother got his first car (MkII Escort V reg about 90mph!!!!) he would skit about everywhere. On a particularily foggy night he was travelling alone down a local national speed limit road when from behind him he heard the words "slow down".:eek!!!!:

These weren't shouted or in some crazy voice but were in a very calm and restrained tone, almost a whisper.

Strangely enough as he got a couple of hundred yards down the road, absolutely nothing happened!
There were no people in the road, no broken down cars blocking his way,....nothing........zip..........nada..............zilch


I did warn you in the first sentence:confused: but he certainly heard a voice
 
Urban legend Sheila is back on the highway

December 08 2004 at 03:25PM

By Yogas Nair

A Chatsworth couple returning home in the early hours of Saturday morning are still reeling from shock after their hair-raising experience with a "mysterious Indian woman dressed in black" in Havenside Drive, off Bayview.

According to Nirvana Rupnarain, 30, of Moorton, they were on their way to Havenside to drop off a friend at about 2.30am when "sheeee" appeared out of the blue.

Rupnarain said they were passing Protea Secondary when they spotted a tall woman, dressed in black pants and shirt, standing in the middle of the road.

"My first thought was that we were going to be hijacked. She was just standing there and looked frightening with her long black hair hanging on her shoulders and her arms outstretched, almost beckoning for us to stop."

She said that as the car approached the woman, she stepped out into their path of travel and looked straight at them with her "wild, glowing, almost spooky eyes".

"By this time I was hysterical and screaming. My husband Niresh swerved the car to avoid her but she jumped out of the way."

Rupnarain said they stopped the car and looked back but the woman had disappeared.

"My hair was literally standing on end and I was terrified but still wanted to know what we had seen."

She said they drove back on the same road but there was no sign of "Sheila".

"I don't believe in ghosts but I said a prayer and have vowed never again to go out late at night."

But her husband Niresh said he was convinced it was either a prostitute or a hijacker.

"I was driving at top speed and this woman just jumped to one side to avoid being hit. I have heard stories about Highway Sheila in the past and unless she changed her dress code from white to black, I'm not convinced she's back."

Legend has it that Highway Sheila was a ghost who roamed on Higginson Highway and was often seen standing in the middle of the road, pleading for motorists to stop, or hitching a lift.

According to one legend, a Chatsworth grandfather fell prey to Highway Sheila when he stopped to give her a lift.

He apparently lent her his jacket and forget to take it back from her when he dropped her off at home.

The next day, when he went to collect it from the house where he'd dropped her, the woman who was living there told him that the young woman had died many years before.

It seems he went to her graveside to verify the story and found his jacket lying on her tombstone... but then this could be just an urban legend.

According to psychic and spiritual healer Elma Duclou, spirits, otherwise known as poltergeists, really do exist.

She said some people who had died in traumatic circumstances (murder or suicide) often manifested themselves as spirits during the festive season or at certain phases of the moon.

"They reveal themselves in an attempt to communicate with the living world and are not harmful in any way."

She suggested that anyone who encountered such spirits should pray and seek protection from God.

"This creates a good energy and washes away any evil."
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Source
 
What about ghost ducks?

My sister was driving across the North Yorkshire moor in the dark, I was passenger and my mum and kids were in the back. Without warning my sister braked hard and stopped on the road.

She said she had hit a duck which had flown out in front of her car. However, there was no sign of said duck, no feathers, nothing. Was it a duck or a ghost of something else? I didn't see anything.
 
More on Highway Sheila:

Is Highway Sheila for real?

December 18 2004 at 01:01PM

By Sharlene Packree

Is she a myth or does she really exist?

Recently, a number of people have claimed to have seen ghostly Highway Sheila in the Chatsworth area, which she is said to haunt.

Legend has it she is a restless spirit who is often seen by motorists in the middle of the road signalling them to stop. One tale has it that a man stopped to give Highway Sheila a lift one chilly night and lent her his leather jacket. When he dropped her off, he forgot his jacket.

The next day, when he returned to her home to pick it up, the woman who answered the door told him Sheila had died many years before. Baffled, the man went to her grave and is said to have found his jacket lying on her tombstone.

The Independent on Saturday asked Asherville psychic Faye le Roux, who has heard the legends many times, if Highway Sheila really exists.

"Sheila's spirit could be roaming around because, when a person dies traumatically - say by murder or suicide - the soul lingers on earth waiting for the time the person was meant to leave the earth," she said.

Spirits like Highway Sheila were not dangerous and people who encountered her should not be afraid.

"This poor woman has been portrayed so negatively - she is not evil, but is searching for closure on her death," Le Roux said.
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Source
 
"Sheila's spirit could be roaming around because, when a person dies traumatically - say by murder or suicide - the soul lingers on earth waiting for the time the person was meant to leave the earth," she said.
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That's a slightly new take. It puts a finite and very definite limit on the 'lifespan' [deathspan?;)] of ghosts.
 
It seems he went to her graveside to verify the story and found his jacket lying on her tombstone... but then this could be just an urban legend.
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Not just a legend but a song.

Laurie was a 1960s ballad in which a boy lends his sweater to a phantom hitcher who is very cold. It turns up on her grave and the date is of course the anniversary of her death a year before.

This is well known in the literature and was for instance referred to in The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-hikers by Michael Goss, published over twenty years ago. Odd to think it still gets retold as fact or even as a "maybe"!

Now we've got rynner back, perhaps Hermes is due for a return. Maybe this thread will attract him.

:)
 
Elffriend said:
What about ghost ducks?

My sister was driving across the North Yorkshire moor in the dark, I was passenger and my mum and kids were in the back. Without warning my sister braked hard and stopped on the road.

She said she had hit a duck which had flown out in front of her car. However, there was no sign of said duck, no feathers, nothing. Was it a duck or a ghost of something else? I didn't see anything.
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I'd wager a bag or something blowing about in front of the car, meself. Ducks don't usually flap about at night, especially in front of cars...and they do make quite a considerable thud (I would imagine!) Oh aye.
 
spillage said:
Elffriend said:
What about ghost ducks?

My sister was driving across the North Yorkshire moor in the dark, I was passenger and my mum and kids were in the back. Without warning my sister braked hard and stopped on the road.

She said she had hit a duck which had flown out in front of her car. However, there was no sign of said duck, no feathers, nothing. Was it a duck or a ghost of something else? I didn't see anything.
Click to expand...

I'd wager a bag or something blowing about in front of the car, meself. Ducks don't usually flap about at night, especially in front of cars...and they do make quite a considerable thud (I would imagine!) Oh aye.
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I live around the corner form a duck pond. Due to the expansion of the suburbs it is now in surrounded by roads and houses and they even have duck crossing signs up and they are completely rubbish about getting out of the way of traffic. I (and many others) have had to herd them back into the pond area to save their sorry asses and they are occasionally found splattered on the roads.

So basically what spillage said ;)
 
James Whitehead said:
It seems he went to her graveside to verify the story and found his jacket lying on her tombstone... but then this could be just an urban legend.
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Not just a legend but a song.

Laurie was a 1960s ballad in which a boy lends his sweater to a phantom hitcher who is very cold. It turns up on her grave and the date is of course the anniversary of her death a year before.

This is well known in the literature and was for instance referred to in The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-hikers by Michael Goss, published over twenty years ago. Odd to think it still gets retold as fact or even as a "maybe"!

Now we've got rynner back, perhaps Hermes is due for a return. Maybe this thread will attract him.

:)
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Thanks James. Good to be back.

Yes, 'Laurie' was performed by Dickie Lee, and was described by Mick Goss as 'saccharine little ballad' - and it is that. The classic phantom hitcher-hiker theme is also reconted in other songs, notably the Country-styled 'Bringing Mary Home' by various artists, including Vernon Oxford.
Regarding the legend itself, there are some good witness accounts - remarkably - of motorists picking up vanishing hitch-hikers (or thinking they have), which sometimes share some of the features of the classic version of the tale (such as disappearances near cemeteries and so on), but never to my knowledge has one ended with the coat-on-the-grave scenario, which, like Goss has pointed out, speaks more of artistic licence than verifiable fact.
 
Road Ghost

A couple of hours ago my wife and I witnessed something quite bizarre. We were returning home from an outing to the Royal Easter Show in Sydney. It was about 9.00pm, so it was dark. We were about an hour and a half away from home. Probably half an hour or so out of Golbourn. So we were travelling through a quiet rural area. We both witnessed a person about 50 metres ahead of us run out into the middle of the road where they stopped and stood motionless. My wife slowed down immediately and turned her high beams on. But seconds later when we reached the spot where the person had stood they had completely vanished. My wife then asked whether I had seen that and I replied that I had seen a person run onto the road and stand still prior to dissapearing. Had I not seen the person run onto the road I could chalk this up to fatigue on the part of my wife. It had been a long day and we were both feeling tired. But the fact that we had both seen the same thing leads me to think that we did witness something. Whether it was a ghost or not I really can't say but it certainly sent a chill up our spines as it was just so unexpected.
 
Ooh! Ooh! Our Hermes'll be after you! :D

Lovely story. Is there any local tradition of ghosts along there, d'you think?
 
Re: Road Ghost

_crypto said:
A couple of hours ago my wife and I witnessed something quite bizarre. We were returning home from an outing to the Royal Easter Show in Sydney. It was about 9.00pm, so it was dark. We were about an hour and a half away from home. Probably half an hour or so out of Golbourn. So we were travelling through a quiet rural area. We both witnessed a person about 50 metres ahead of us run out into the middle of the road where they stopped and stood motionless. My wife slowed down immediately and turned her high beams on. But seconds later when we reached the spot where the person had stood they had completely vanished. My wife then asked whether I had seen that and I replied that I had seen a person run onto the road and stand still prior to dissapearing. Had I not seen the person run onto the road I could chalk this up to fatigue on the part of my wife. It had been a long day and we were both feeling tired. But the fact that we had both seen the same thing leads me to think that we did witness something. Whether it was a ghost or not I really can't say but it certainly sent a chill up our spines as it was just so unexpected.
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This morning I saw four moving dark objects in a field - I thought they were deer - when I got closer I saw they were wild turkeys, two big toms following two hens (deer and wild turkey are common where I am). Couldn't it have been a 'roo that you mistook for a man?
 
Re: Road Ghost

markbellis said:
_crypto said:
... We both witnessed a person about 50 metres ahead of us run out into the middle of the road where they stopped and stood motionless. ...
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... Couldn't it have been a 'roo that you mistook for a man?
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I'm no kangaroo expert, but one thing they almost definitely don't do, is run. 'Cause their feet's too big. Hop yes, run no.

Great tale, _Crypto! :yeay:
 
Re: Road Ghost

Pietro_Mercurios said:
markbellis said:
_crypto said:
... We both witnessed a person about 50 metres ahead of us run out into the middle of the road where they stopped and stood motionless. ...
Click to expand...

... Couldn't it have been a 'roo that you mistook for a man?
Click to expand...
I'm no kangaroo expert, but one thing they almost definitely don't do, is run. 'Cause their feet's too big. Hop yes, run no.

Great tale, _Crypto! :yeay:
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And turkeys don't move anything like a deer - and that was in full daylight - what I meant is that it's easy to make a mistake when you're tired and it's dark.
 
I'm no kangaroo expert, but one thing they almost definitely don't do, is run. 'Cause their feet's too big. Hop yes, run no.
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I am a kangaroo expert and this doesn't sound like wild turkeys to me
 
It sounds like the pertinent points are a) it was running like a human and b) it ran out in front of the witnesses, on a road, not in a field.

I've read elsewhere of unidentified critters "walking" or "running" away, and a 'roo suggested as the culprit. I've always heard that kangaroos literally cannot move their hind legs independently. They always move their hind limbs in tandem, thus, they have to hop, jump, or leap -- at any rate, use a form of locomotion I would be hard pressed to call a "walk".
 
I am the first to admit that it was dark and we were tired thus misidentification is a possibility. However, I've seen lots of kangaroos and I know how they move. What I saw was dark, fully upright, human shaped and definitely running. There was no suggestion of a hopping motion in its movement. The speed at which this 'person' ran out onto the road was a fast jog. I couldn't really identify any clothing that the person was wearing but I did get the impression that it was a male. I gues they weren't really shaped like a female. As for the actual dissapearance the person was there one moment and gone the next. Neither my wife or I took our eyes off the road. That's why it was just so strange. My wife really thought she was going to hit this person.

As to whether there are any reports of strange events on this part of the highway - I have no idea.
 
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