Phantom Hitchhikers & Road Ghosts

[markbellis]

...the person was there one moment and gone the next......

Which is what you'd expect from an animal that can leap across a road in a single bound.
From the local Golbourn newspaper:

Kangaroo contributes to spectacular semi crash: Notorious road claims another victim
By DAVID COLE

A NOTORIOUS stretch of the Federal Highway nears Rowe's Lagoon that has claimed 10 lives and injured more than 40 people in the last seven years has been the site of another accident.
....

Police said the driver swerved to miss a kangaroo that had jumped in front of the vehicle on a sweeping bend.

http://goulburn.yourguide.com.au/news/l ... 05896.html

 

[PeniG]

It is important, when interpreting eyewitness accounts, to keep track and acknowledge the kinds of perceptual and memory mistakes that people tend to make without losing the value of the actual report. I'm sure that a little exertion can produce a simple mundane explanation that fits the facts better than a kangaroo does.

Because our own experience colors our readings, I connect this report to my own experience of sleep deprivation back in 1980. I was riding shotgun at night in the long, empty expanses of West Texas, and I began to see tall men in hats running across the road and vanishing in the crossed beams of the headlights. I had been up for over 24 hours and the men had a pixellated appearance, as if they were part of a more sophisticated videogame than was available at the time, so I could tell they were hallucinations; also, they did this repeatedly and the driver could not see them, so this doesn't fit the facts much better than the kangaroo, except for the "man running across the road" element.

Since you both saw it, it was either a mobile object or conditions were such as to subject both of you to the same optical illusion. Since it has such a similarity to my man-in-the-crossed-headlights vision, I wonder what there might be about empty roads, headlights, and nighttime that might combine into running man illusions.

I'd also ask around for stories about that stretch of road. Stories don't prove anything (many ghost stories are explanatory fables for misunderstood phenomena), but they make everything more interesting.

 

[markbellis]

Ia little exertion can produce a simple mundane explanation that fits the facts better than a kangaroo does.

Kangaroos are pretty mundane in that region, as the newspaper article suggests, so I think mistaking one large biped for another at 50 metres in the dark fits the facts as well as anything else. I guess it's pareidolia that makes people see human faces and shapes when there aren't any, because those are the things that are important to us.

 

[colpepper1]

Wasn't there, can't say. However road ghosts are a persistent phenomenon and explaining them as cattle, roos and mist defies our familiarity with the human form and the way it moves. I can't say whether your's was a spook but it fits the picture.

 

[markbellis]

Wasn't there, can't say. However road ghosts are a persistent phenomenon and explaining them as cattle, roos and mist defies our familiarity with the human form and the way it moves. I can't say whether your's was a spook but it fits the picture.

What picture? There's no good evidence for spooks existing in the first place. If they were persistent, we would have some proof they were real....
If you drive down the road, see what you think is a figure running, and then it turns into a bush or a post box, do you assume a) the ghost morphed into a mundane object and park and wait for it to reappear in its astral form; or b) realize you're tired and pull over for a rest?
You're in motion, it's low light but you've got a bright light in front of you - prime time for retinal afterimages..

 

[colpepper1]

There's no good evidence for spooks existing in the first place. If they were persistent, we would have some proof they were real.....

I don't follow that at all. 'Ghosts' whatever they are, are one of the most persistently reported cross cultural phenomena. Just because photographic evidence doesn't exist doesn't mean 'they' don't. If psychic phenomena are real by any of the other dimensional, spirit, afterlife interpretations it would be as surprising if they revealed themselves through the lens as if they didn't.

Road ghosts have their own cultural-anecdotal baggage which are marked by sudden appearances, warning states, inexplicable accidents and so on. To say you must be mistaken is as curious a response as saying you can't be sure the people in the shopping mall aren't goats; drivers, tired or not do not habitually report people leaping into the road and disappearing but a few do and they have elements in common.
As I said, we can have no way of knowing if this falls into that category.

The Ruskington, Lincs example here: http://www.roadghosts.com/Introduction.htm in the UK list is a typical one.

 

[Spookdaddy]

The Ruskington, Lincs example here: http://www.roadghosts.com/Introduction.htm in the UK list is a typical one.

I'd forgotten what a thoughtful and intelligent website this was - a beacon amongst the witless dross that, in my experience, forms the bulk of most other sites which claim to study the paranormal.

There's no good evidence for spooks existing in the first place. If they were persistent, we would have some proof they were real.....

I don't follow that at all...

Neither do I and I'm naturally fairly sceptical. At a push I'd have to agree, at least technically, with the 'no good evidence' bit - but the latter statement seems to me to be dangerously close to stating that if something exists then we would know about it simply because it exists - tantamount to telling all the scientists in the world to shut up shop and do something useful because there's nothing left to discover.

 

[markbellis]

There's no good evidence for spooks existing in the first place. If they were persistent, we would have some proof they were real.....

I don't follow that at all. 'Ghosts' whatever they are, are one of the most persistently reported cross cultural phenomena. Just because photographic evidence doesn't exist doesn't mean 'they' don't. If psychic phenomena are real by any of the other dimensional, spirit, afterlife interpretations it would be as surprising if they revealed themselves through the lens as if they didn't.

But they're supposed to reveal themselves through the lens of the human eye, yet not leave any trace on film? When I say "real" I mean that there is reason to believe there is a concrete existence outside of the viewer's imagination - not psychological phenomena like optical illusions, or cultural ones like urban legends.

Road ghosts have their own cultural-anecdotal baggage which are marked by sudden appearances, warning states, inexplicable accidents and so on. To say you must be mistaken is as curious a response as saying you can't be sure the people in the shopping mall aren't goats;

It would be curious if someone said that - since I didn't - however, saying 'must be mistaken' would require some degree of proof of certainty, in this case, something like a kangaroo captured leaping across the road on CCTV at the moment the viewer reported seeing a human being.

However, saying "you can't be sure the people in the shopping mall aren't goats" is true - however, the possibility of this is quite a bit less than the likelihood that someone made a mistake on a dark night. The fact that people have misperceived mundane objects in low light conditions as supernatural one, post boxes and bushes for running figures, that they admit were mistakes, lends credence to the opinion that it was most likely, not 'must be', a mistake, in the sense that it was not a person who just ran into the road and vanished, in this case.

drivers, tired or not do not habitually report people leaping into the road and disappearing but a few do and they have elements in common.
As I said, we can have no way of knowing if this falls into that category.

We don't know, but we can assess how likely things are - since police cruisers have been fitted out with cameras for some years and yet no police officer has managed to film a 'road phantom' yet, I think the bunyip and yowie hypotheses are more likely than a completely supernatural one.

 

[markbellis]

There's no good evidence for spooks existing in the first place. If they were persistent, we would have some proof they were real.....

I don't follow that at all...

Neither do I and I'm naturally fairly sceptical. At a push I'd have to agree, at least technically, with the 'no good evidence' bit - but the latter statement seems to me to be dangerously close to stating that if something exists then we would know about it simply because it exists - tantamount to telling all the scientists in the world to shut up shop and do something useful because there's nothing left to discover.

OK -

However road ghosts are a persistent phenomenon

Persistent means:

1: existing for a long or longer than usual time or continuously: as a: retained beyond the usual period <a persistent leaf> b: continuing without change in function or structure <persistent gills> c: effective in the open for an appreciable time usually through slow volatilizing <mustard gas is persistent> d: degraded only slowly by the environment <persistent pesticides> - Webster online

 

[colpepper1]

The weight of literature, anecdote and first hand accounts of spooky stuff, compared to the lack of recorded evidence suggests manifestations are either a wholly psychological process or the entity uses the observer in a subjective way to reveal itself. On that basis all the cameras, thermometers and electro magnetic gubbins in the world don't mean a damned thing. I have serious doubts whether technology as we currently understand it will make break throughs into 'other realms'.

Personally I find road ghosts compelling because they cross folk lore and psychological archetypes, old school hauntings and modern transport. Which is pretty neato.
By persistent I wasn't suggesting individual ghosts act up to temporal recurrance (though some may do) but phenomena that fits a definition keeps happening.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Persistent means:

1: existing for a long or longer than usual time or continuously: as a: retained beyond the usual period <a persistent leaf> b: continuing without change in function or structure <persistent gills> c: effective in the open for an appreciable time usually through slow volatilizing <mustard gas is persistent> d: degraded only slowly by the environment <persistent pesticides> - Webster online

I kind of understand your problem with the word in this context and I'm certainly not arguing over its definition. My objection was to the idea that the persistence or continuity of a phenomenon automatically means we would understand or have proof of it.

Personally I find road ghosts compelling because they cross folk lore and psychological archetypes, old school hauntings and modern transport. Which is pretty neato.

I'd agree - a totally fascinating subject, whatever the 'reality' or otherwise of the phenomena in question.

 

[Zilch5]

Dang - I didn't make it to the Easter Show this year...

But I am pretty familiar with the road to Goulburn. I have never "seen" anything unusual there (other then the police radar traps) but have always felt "spooked" on certain parts of the road. I don't know if other people get this too, but sometimes you drive through an area and it doens't "feel right" - you feel you want to get out of there, for no apparent reason at all? I've this feeling a lot on this road - can't explain it though.

As for the roo theory, I've had that happen a few times, and you will not mistake that for anything but what it is. They too can scare the bejeezes out of you - but for entirely different and "real" reasons. It's just very dangerous and you don't want to collide with one, trust me. And they don't look like humans and move in a very specific manner.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Maybe this thread should be merged with the Phantom hitchhikers or road ghosts thread, which is definitely interesting enough to justify resurrection....well, I think!

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Maybe this thread should be merged with the Phantom hitchhikers or road ghosts thread, which is definitely interesting enough to justify resurrection....well, I think!

Good idea.

I have merged the two Threads, for the moment. However, as it was an IHTM, Thread, if _crypto wants me to unmerge it, back to IHTM, I will.

 

[Zilch5]

Maybe this thread should be merged with the Phantom hitchhikers or road ghosts thread, which is definitely interesting enough to justify resurrection....well, I think!

Good idea.

I have merged the two Threads, for the moment. However, as it was an IHTM, Thread, if _crypto wants me to unmerge it, back to IHTM, I will.

May I humbly disagree?

The road to Goulburn (and its Gaol and Belanglo Forest and Ned Kelly) deserve their own thread, IMHO.

This MAY be a local issue that non-locals fail to grasp.

Or it could be just me.
8)

 

[Spookdaddy]

Maybe this thread should be merged with the Phantom hitchhikers or road ghosts thread, which is definitely interesting enough to justify resurrection....well, I think!

Good idea.

I have merged the two Threads, for the moment. However, as it was an IHTM, Thread, if _crypto wants me to unmerge it, back to IHTM, I will.

Apologies to _crypto - in my haste I'd forgotten this was an IHTM. Feel free to curse me for my impulsiveness.

 

[colpepper1]

Road ghosts have similar facets to night hags. A semi-dream or unfocussed state, the interruption of that state by (typically) grotesque or virginal figures, disappearence on wakefulness, sinister or warning overtones.
All terms in 'quotes' but there are comparisons perhaps.

 

[Zilch5]

...virginal figures...

I wish!

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Granting that ghosts exist, at least for the sake of argument (that's to keep Mark happy), might it not be possible that ghosts travel place-to-place along roads and highways, just like living people do?

And in Britain and Europe, especially, do modern roads and highways to any extent follow or at least parallel the tracks of the ancient "corpse ways"?

 

[GNC]

Granting that ghosts exist, at least for the sake of argument (that's to keep Mark happy), might it not be possible that ghosts travel place-to-place along roads and highways, just like living people do?

There are certainly stories of ghost vehicles, maybe they hop in one of them? And for the older spirits, there's always the option of a horse.

 

[escargot]

Wi' no 'ead.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I wonder if there might be "road ghosts" experienced along roads which no longer exist?

Say those old Roman roads in Britain which are recognized only by observant archaeologists viewing them from the air. (Or, for that matter, even pre-Roman paths.)

Or stated another way, whether a ghost reportedly seen gliding across a British farm field might in fact be following one of those long-forgotten old roadways.

 

[GNC]

Or stated another way, whether a ghost reportedly seen gliding across a British farm field might in fact be following one of those long-forgotten old roadways.

I'm not sure that most ghosts last that long. Might be true of a handful (I could bring up those Romans in the basement again).

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I didn't necessarily mean that the ghosts had to be as old as the roads. The existence and locations of those "lost" Roman (or even older) roads may be known to aerial archaeologists .....and ghosts! <g>

In short, do modern ghosts still know (and use) the ancient corpse- and ghost-ways?

 

[GNC]

Right. I'm not sure that ghosts are self-aware enough to choose their routes along the afterlife, but I could be wrong. It might be one rule for some phantoms, another rule for the others. It's pure speculation (which doesn't mean we shouldn't use our imaginations, of course).

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I'm not sure that ghosts are self-aware enough to choose their routes along the afterlife....

I think I mildly disagree with you there. But mightn't it also be possible that ghosts' movements along the ghost-roads aren't entirely volitional?

 

[colpepper1]

Bleaklow, Derbyshire is supposed to have Roman ghosts on the high tracks and the M62 also.

 

[GNC]

I'm not sure that ghosts are self-aware enough to choose their routes along the afterlife....

I think I mildly disagree with you there. But mightn't it also be possible that ghosts' movements along the ghost-roads aren't entirely volitional?

It's possible they could be like trains running along a model railway, yes. Which might give rise to questions about the railway controllers.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

What I was trying to suggest is that if ghosts are electro-magnetic fields of some type they might very well be subject to all sorts of "telluric" forces.

 

[GNC]

What I was trying to suggest is that if ghosts are electro-magnetic fields of some type they might very well be subject to all sorts of "telluric" forces.

Wouldn't we see more ghosts at times of thunderstorms then? Or even earthquakes?