Sunningdale Rolled-Car Road-Ghost?

[FenTyger]

Here's a thing which happened to me in the summer of (I think) about 1997 or maybe 1998.
At the time I lived in Egham, and regularly travelled down the A30 to Sandhurst to see friends. For a few weeks I was doing the journey three or four times a week.

One evening, in failing light, on the slight bends before Sunningdale, about here...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 6&t=h&z=16

I saw what appeared to be a medium-sized car, upside down in the verge. I was looking at the underneath of the car as I was driving SW-bound towards it, and could clearly see the exhaust-pipe running along the underneath of the car, and all four wheels. It seemed to be a front-wheel-drive car, possibly a Mark 3 or 4 Ford Escort. It appeared to be lying on its drivers-side, and facing to the left as I approached it.

As I slowed on approach, preparing to get out and help, it resolved itself into a branch from a fallen tree.

OK. These things happen, funny old world.

I'm not sure whether I "saw" it again on the way home, from the other direction that same night, but here's the thing...

... on every subsequent trip over the next few weeks, and in both directions I would approach the same place thinking "here's where that strange rolled-car effect occurs...

Oh No! It's really happened! A car has rolled! I had a premonition, and now it's happened!!"

Except that it would be the same-old fallen tree.

It 'worked' from the other direction as well, so the 'angles' must have been right.

Now clearly it must just have been a particularly strange fallen-tree effect, but usually these things only "work" the first time, and this was utterly convincing EVERY time, and even though I was "ready" for it, every time, up to the point where I should have been blase about it, but still went "oh no! this time it's REAL!"

After a few weeks I stopped doing the trip regularly. I've returned subsequently, and I can point out where it was, but cannot now seen the effect, or what may have cause the effect.

I never saw an actual crashed car in the location, nor any sign of one, although I never stopped to get out to investigate.

Funny eh?

 

[escargot]

This is a great story, especially as you saw the same thing repeatedly. Reminds me of a letter years in FT from a bus driver, who stopped on a new route for a woman in a red jacket who suddenly 'turned into' a pillar box when he drew up!

Every new bus driver had the same experience and the 'lady' always appeared, even long after each driver had got used to the illusion.

Of course, these days lots of us carry camera phones so someone'd photograph it. Back then things were trickier.

In the woods where I walk my dogs, I used to take a route where a distant tree stump looked like a large dog sitting up watching me. Fooled me, just briefly, every time.

I did photograph it but the pictures were completely unconvincing so I didn't bother sharing them. In the flesh, as it were, it was a dog. :lol:

 

[tilly50]

There's a 'phone box (one of the modern ones, all glass) that always appears to have a man standing in it when you approach it from around a tight bend in the road coming off the motorway heading in to my home town. The effect is only seen after dark so is probably something to do with headlights/streetlights but it too gets you every time. A friend is so convinced that it is a ghost that she will not stop in the village there.

 

[rynner2]

Years ago in North Devon, I often had to drive to work along country lanes for a 1 am shift. At one point there was a white pillar of a gateway, and it seemed to catch me by surprise every time, as it would pop into view quite suddenly. What's more, it resembled a white hooded figure...! :shock:

 

[myf13]

There are two roads near Wokingham which I often drive along, both of which have "ghosts" that still get me - one of them does it every time whether it's day or night (the first time I saw it I was really shaken up because I thought I might have hit the "person", as it seemed to move into the road!), the other only does it sometimes, at night. Both seem to actually be white posts quite near to the road. The curious thing is that for years I drove past them without having this effect, and then it just started a few years ago.