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The Ditchling Beacon Walker

Quercus said:
Nope, not yet... I did submit a truncated version of it to a chap who ran a Facebook group on local hauntings about two years ago, but as far as I know he never published it.

But I'll make that the my next IHTM thread, if you fancy it!
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Yes please!
 
Vardoger said:
LOL. People see all kinds of stuff. There must be a rational explanation for the reflection, of course.
This is where I see a face. :)

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I’ve already given a rational explanation just a few posts up. People taking snaps of stuff for ebay use all manner of blankets and hoods to hide themselves taking the picture because ‘that’s probably what professionals do’.

Do you really think a ghost is taking that picture?
 
I'd say the only remarkable thing was the utter coldness that followed me for hours afterwards, making me unable to warm up at all.

This would be fairly typical of shock. Whatever it was you saw, it seemed to put you into quite a state, so I'd guess you were in shock for quite a while.
 
Analogue Boy said:
I’ve already given a rational explanation just a few posts up. People taking snaps of stuff for ebay use all manner of blankets and hoods to hide themselves taking the picture because ‘that’s probably what professionals do’.

Do you really think a ghost is taking that picture?
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No, of course not. That's why I said it must be a rational explanation for the reflection.
 
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catseye said:
I'd say the only remarkable thing was the utter coldness that followed me for hours afterwards, making me unable to warm up at all.

This would be fairly typical of shock. Whatever it was you saw, it seemed to put you into quite a state, so I'd guess you were in shock for quite a while.
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That sounds quite plausible - I hadn't actually considered that I might have been in a state of yer actual clinical shock, as it's not something I've any experience with.

But yes - I probably was in a bit of a state afterwards. It was a get-away-at-all-costs panic which has only ever touched me a handful of times.
 
Quercus said:
One chap did contact me off the back of it to ask for more details and send me his own story about faceless figures appearing in his bedroom – which he described as having ‘black holes’ for faces.

I don’t wish to circulate his own account here as I don’t have his permission to do so, but here’s my reply which maybe fleshes out my own thoughts a little better:

Hi [Correspondent],

Thanks for your comment on the Guardian article on Hallowe'en stories - I'm interested and intrigued that there could be some sort of 'type' of phenomena that shares similar characteristics to the figure I saw on the road at Ditchling in Sussex. Certainly I've heard of phantom highwayman sightings in oral histories, but hadn't considered that perhaps the 'masked man' trope may have more in common with the sort of figure I saw.

I suppose, when confronted with something unfamiliar, the mind does try to categorise it into something familiar, and for many people the highwayman archetype would kinda fit - I initially thought the figure I saw was a farmer, based on my knowledge of the area and the type of people I'd pass in Ditchling, but certainly the long coat, high boots and wide-brimmed hat could just as easily be thought of as some sort of highwayman-style attire, especially if another detail seemed to be a mask over the face.

As stated, I'm utterly positive that there was nothing covering the face of the figure (which would have been not unreasonable on such a cold night) - there simply was no face, at all - a total void, a nothingness. Had the figure been actually invisible below the clothes - humour me here - then from my viewpoint I'm confident that the bright brakelights from my car would have illuminated the inside crown of the hat, and the back of the scarf. But it was simply a void - one, like you say, that I can now imagine as going on forever. It was a bit like a black hole, in some ways, sucking in everything including the light from my Escort's rear lamps. And definitely the heat.

It was a bitter night, but I'd had the heater on for about half an hour (I'd dropped off a few other staff members in Hayward's Heath and Burgess Hill - part of the deal at the care home seemed to involve acting as an unpaid taxi service for non-driving staff coming off the late shift) and the car was nicely warm inside. When I wound the window down, the warmth vanished immediately - and I couldn't get heat into the car again after, even with the blower up to maximum, or any warmth into myself when I got home. I have never been colder - I literally felt chilled to the bone, but couldn't tell whether this was a physical or mental sensation of coldness. I thought at first it was just that I felt spooked and hence cold; but now I'm not so sure.

Thinking about it now, I can't say that I noticed any hands on the figure either, or really anything other than the clothes. That's not to say there weren't hands - I just don't remember seeing them, though there were of course arms on the coat. The image in my mirror of the absent face is what is permanently burned into my memory, though. Every crease and wrinkle of the clothing, dyed red by the lights and in sharp focus, and the nothingness up top.

Ruminating on this, the thing that annoys me about responses to any article on the paranormal in the popular media is this assumption that the person telling the story is simply gullible and stupid, or an attention-seeker, and saw something run-of-the-mill and then misinterpreted it, either accidentally or wilfully. There's a tendency among those of a more sceptical bent to conclude that someone has chosen to arrive at a fantastical conclusion first, rather than taking the time to consider the more logical and everyday possibilities.

And I can certainly see the logic there - if you claim to believe in ghosts, and visit a location reputed to be haunted, it's quite possible that very ordinary events might be misconstrued as paranormal even when there are much more plausible explanations (creaking of old floorboards resembling footsteps, birds or mice in attics making scuffling noises). Identical sounds or feelings would be dismissed, or identified as normal, in any other location. Anyone who goes out expecting to experience something supernatural will probably manage to convince themselves that they have done so, however unconscious that bias may be.

With my experience on the road, it wasn't like that (nor, indeed, most of the other odd things that have happened to me) - it was the other way round. I encountered a situation which, although unexpected (a walker on the road, late at night) was entirely normal in appearance. My assumption was totally humdrum ("Gosh, must be a farmer walking home from The Bull. He really should have a torch with him, he couldn't possibly see a thing out here!"), and then changed to concern ("Wonder if he's broken down in the village? I'm sure he could use a lift - it's not nice out there, and I know I'd appreciate help if I were in that situation").

At every stage, I was expecting nothing more than an interaction with a real, living person. It wasn't a case of, "ooh, I saw a ghost! It was dark, and spooky, and I saw a man out walking so it must have been a ghost!" It was only on registering the lack of face on the figure coming towards me, that my mind spent several seconds trying to figure out what I was seeing, trying to make it fit some pattern of normality - the same way you might try each key from a bunch in an unfamiliar lock, one after the other - before concluding that this was a situation far outside of normality. And that's when my flight instinct kicked in.

I fully accept I may be wrong in what I think I saw - indeed, if someone were to reply below the line "I'm a farmer in Ditchling and I remember one night while I was walking up to the Beacon a car stopped, then drove on quickly - I was wearing a black Thinsulate scarf over my face because it was a cold night", then I think I would experience some considerable relief. I could accept that I was wrong, that I misinterpreted what my eyes thought they were seeing, and I could move on.

Because the event has stayed with me. Unfinished, unresolved, like an unanswered letter left in a bureau. I feel like an unspoken question was asked of me that night: "What am I? What are you?" I can't answer that question. And I keep turning and turning it over, without rest. And that's why I can't laugh it off, forget about it, let it go. Because another thought comes in - what if I'd waited? What if I'd frozen in terror until the figure drew level with me - turned to me, placed that void mere inches from my face - what then?

It's the distance between what is and what might be, and how that might not be much distance at all, that brings me back to these threads.

Anyway. Thank you - for your interest, and for reading my blatherings. I've attached a copy of the original account, which I wrote down three years ago (my first copy of the account, written not long after the experience, was sadly lost in a catastrophic laptop failure), and also a copy of the full submission to the Guardian yesterday. I would also be very interested in hearing more about your experience when you were ten!

Thanks, and take care,

[Quercus]
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it does look like this guy was heading to a secret rave. It's really hard to explain the type. He could of been wearing a faceless sort of mask. Lots of people do. I used to go to things like this. It's word of mouth. Look at mortal combat movie the night club scene where Sonia Blade is hunting down Kano. It's this sort of style of rave.
 
Aurora Newman said:
it does look like this guy was heading to a secret rave. It's really hard to explain the type. He could of been wearing a faceless sort of mask. Lots of people do. I used to go to things like this. It's word of mouth. Look at mortal combat movie the night club scene where Sonia Blade is hunting down Kano. It's this sort of style of rave.
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Als
Aurora Newman said:
it does look like this guy was heading to a secret rave. It's really hard to explain the type. He could of been wearing a faceless sort of mask. Lots of people do. I used to go to things like this. It's word of mouth. Look at mortal combat movie the night club scene where Sonia Blade is hunting down Kano. It's this sort of style of rave. Also there were a few i went to in Sussex when I was in my late teens
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Vardoger said:
Where's the effin' face? Even after altering the contrast and stuff no face became visible.
And no camera is visible in the reflection... Usually you can see if a photo has been manipulated to remove face.
It is of course possible the seller covered the face in a black fabric before taking the photo.
Here it is upscaled.

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It is bizarre isn’t it? Made more peculiar by the fact that the same trick is not repeated in any of the other photos of the humidor.
 

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Quercus said:
Heh, that's probably not dissimilar to what my face was like in the immediate aftermath...

Now, if only front and rear dash cams had been a thing in the early 2000s... the whole episode could have made an interesting reaction video.

Which does beg the question, rather - are sightings like these becoming more or less reported, with the rise of dash cam usage?

From a more sceptical perspective, it could be argued that an apparently sinister figure may lose its sense of spookiness when rewatching footage later on, safe at home and away from other cues - leading to the realisation that it was just someone out for a walk, after all. And many sceptics, rightly, now query a lack of tangible evidence for such accounts as mine, at a time when image recording technology is both cheap and readily available.

I've seen some pretty ropey fake footage of 'roadside ghosts' online (many of which seem to be rather influenced by The Ring, it appears) so it's hard to know whether having a dashcam recording of my encounter would have added anything, other than confirming that the whole thing wasn't a hallucination.

Again, it's not so much what I saw, but how it made me feel, that remains the most vivid part of it all.



Yes, it's strange just how much a lack of face is terribly, terribly bothersome... I suppose humans are hardwired to look for faces and the emotions to be deciphered there (hence the prevalence of pareidolia), and to have nothing at all to work with, well... it's highly discomfiting.

With this one, it's hard to tell exactly what was there - there was no head that I could detect, that much I know (some accounts of faceless figures describe a head with a smooth, featureless expanse where a face ought to be), and there was no outline of a head (so, scarf, balaclava or morph suit don't come into it). But it wasn't like an 'invisible man' style of thing - I couldn't see the inside crown of the hat, or the back of a shirt, or anything of that nature.

It was almost like a vortex, or a state of complete nothingness. So strange that I can't really describe it properly, or draw it, or anything - like trying to describe a brand-new colour. I don't have the words; just the sensation. And for me, it was a state of utter fear and panic.

I sympathize with your husband!



Hey, thanks! Your friend's story is also pretty chilling, and all of these accounts are making me re-evaluate just how rare (or otherwise) these kinds of sightings may be...

I think I know which illustration you're referring to in the Usborne ghost book - and the clothes I saw are probably worth elaborating on, especially as the 1991 account of a figure walking up Ditchling also references the clothes.

As I rounded the corner, the figure walking up the hill gave me no particular cause for alarm. The clothes were quite nondescript, and hard to pigeonhole as belonging to any given era by dint of their extreme plainness.

The boots looked like knee-length utility boots, the type you might buy if you were involved in equine pursuits. They appeared to be made of matt brown leather, and styled more as a plain yard boot than a shaped and polished dress boot. A heel of about two inches, and slightly baggy and rumpled with wear around the ankle. The tops disappeared up into the hem of the coat and I don't remember seeing any buckles or zips. They weren't rubber Wellington boots, I'm fairly sure of that.

The coat was a long, plain affair, coming down to just below the knee, something in the manner of an Australian 'duster' coat worn by stockmen. There were no adornments or anything; no turned-back cuffs or adorned pockets or buttoned backpieces in best C18th fashion. Just a very plain, long, dark brown coat, which wasn't noticeably dirty but did appear to be well-used, and entirely in keeping with someone who worked the land.

The collar may have been turned up, but I can't say for sure. I don't recall seeing any hair, or ears, or anything like that as I approached from behind.

The hat was a flat-crowned item, with a reasonably wide brim but again, nothing too outlandish. It was neither particularly tall nor particularly wide, and broadly in keeping with the kind of hats I've seen farmers wear. It may also have been made of leather; there was a very slight side-to-side curve to the brim, but nothing like a Stetson style - if you'd like a point of reference, think Phil Harding off Time Team and his hat. Not a million miles off that, though I don't recall a band or any other decorative addition. Like all the other items of clothing, it seemed to be a dark tertiary colour, functional and well used.

The figure seemed neither noticeably tall nor small; and its gait was quite normal. It was a steep hill, and the figure was making progress with a stride that seemed accustomed to covering long distances. It was walking on the right hand side of the road (so facing any oncoming traffic) but several feet from the edge of the road, more towards the centre line. The figure's boots were definitely making contact with the road - nothing floating above the surface, nor vanishing beneath the surface.

I feel it important to reiterate that, at the point I made visual contact, there was absolutely nothing unusual about the figure, other than I was unaccustomed to meeting pedestrians on this road at this time of night. Nothing seemed 'off', or gave me cause for alarm.

The road from the village to the Beacon is narrow, so when driving the hairpin bends at night I tended to go wide and use all the road, to conserve momentum and avoid having to make more gearchanges than necessary. Obviously, not if I could see the headlights of another car coming the other way! So when I mentioned in my original account that I steered around the figure, that's what I'm referring to - I rounded the bend in the centre of the road, and had to quickly steer back to my own lane to pass safely, when I saw the figure walking up the downhill lane. It seemed bad enough to be slogging up a steep hill in the dark without a passing motorist smacking your backside with a door mirror...

In terms of timings, I only had about three or four seconds to observe the figure in my headlights before I was already alongside it. I was probably doing about 25 miles an hour in third gear, and had half-expected that the figure would move over a little to the side of the road a little as I drove past, but it didn't.

At the point I drove right alongside - with the figure only a foot or two from my door - I was slowing, shifting down to second gear, and making sure I was giving them enough room to pass without putting myself in danger. I was focusing on the road ahead and the trees to my immediate left, but I sometimes wonder what I might have seen if I'd glanced to the right. I was aware of passing the figure in my peripheral vision, but nothing more than that.

As I say, all if this occurred in the space of a few seconds, while rounding the turn. It was only when the most pressing action had been completed (passing the figure safely) that my 'driver' mind receded and my curiosity came to the fore - who are they? Are they okay? Do they need a lift? And so on.

And it was at this point that I decided to see if I could help in any way, and began to slow the car to a halt. Again, still no sense that anything was strange, or 'off' in any way. I'd played Good Samaritan to a few stricken motorists before, offering jumpleads and torches where needed, and I was genuinely concerned that this walker may meet with a mishap if another car came down the hill fast, with nowhere for a pedestrian to move out of the way. If nothing else, I felt it incumbent on me to check.

Because it had taken me another few seconds to play through this internal monologue, I was probably about ten or fifteen metres ahead of the figure before I came to a complete halt. I briefly considered rolling back until I drew level, but thought it might alarm the walker if a car suddenly started rolling downhill toward them. So I opted to wait until they drew level with me, planning my opening words as I did so - something along the lines of, "You alright mate, d'you need a lift up the hill anywhere?"

A certain amount of cold was expected when I rolled down the window, though I can't recall if the air rushing in was really as unbelievably cold as it seemed - or if it was just because the car was pleasantly toasty, and outside wasn't. So I can't comment on whether I experienced an unearthly cold, or if I'm just a bit of a wuss.

But the situation turned from unexpected to unbelievable at the point that I moved my head to look at the walker's reflection in the drivers side door mirror. Just so I could see how far away they were, and get a sense, I suppose, of the kind of person they were - my own age, older, whatever.

And that's where the problem started, because although I could see the clothes ok, but I couldn't see them. No face. But not invisible. A nothingness, but at the same time, a nothingness that was also a something. Something indescribable. The scene behind was lit red with the Escort's brake lights, but the nothingness was... infinite nothingness. It wasn't even black. It was just... nothingness. Which isn't quite the same as nothing.

It's about this point that I start to become uncomfortably self-conscious whenever I'm trying to tell someone about the episode. Because it sounds like I'm either not trying hard enough to form a description, or fear I come across as a bit nuts; as if I'm grasping at my interlocutor's sleeve, eyes rolling wildly, muttering you gotta believe me boy, there was nothing, but a nothing that was a something...

Nope, it doesn't make sense. I know it doesn't. And it was that sudden, shocked, undeniable acknowledgement that what was before me was utterly outside my frame of reference that eventually pushed the panic button, once I'd spun through all possible logical reasoning and drawn a blank each time. Only then did my lizard brain take over to remove me from the situation as fast as was practicable.

Sixteen years on, I still don't know... but I simply couldn't hang around to find out.



Hey, thanks... I have a few accounts written down in full as a narrative; a few others that are in note form, and yet more that are just a line or two as an aide memoire.

Will do my best to get a few more posted up! I've alluded to another couple of odd experiences from my past further up the thread, so if anything in particular piques anyone's interest, sing out and I'll pull it together for next time.
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Yes that nothingness is exactly what my husband says if you try to press some sort of description out of him. He can't find the words for it, either. Yet he felt sure it wasn't in the shadow of the hood it was wearing. And I think he felt it was somehow malevolent (will ask him again but of all hs weird experiences, this is one he doesn't even like talking about). But maybe only because he felt sure it was looking right at him. I will ask him how far he was from it.
 
Analogue Boy said:
I’ve already given a rational explanation just a few posts up. People taking snaps of stuff for ebay use all manner of blankets and hoods to hide themselves taking the picture because ‘that’s probably what professionals do’.

Do you really think a ghost is taking that picture?
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It's a Nessie trying to make you think it's a ghost.
 
maximus otter said:
The best that limited time, talent and online materials will allow:

Ditchling-Beacon-Fortean-09.jpg


maximus otter
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There's a guy in my town who dresses exactly like that. He doesn't drive, so he walks everywhere. I've seen him out and about a lot.
I call him the goth cowboy, because that's his style.
 
Mythopoeika said:
There's a guy in my town who dresses exactly like that. He doesn't drive, so he walks everywhere. I've seen him out and about a lot.
I call him the goth cowboy, because that's his style.
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There’s a similar guy I see on my drive to work a couple of times a week. He’s usually walking from a farm into town. Strormchaser coat, boots, wide brimmed hat. The whole deal. He does have a face though.
 
Aurora Newman said:
it does look like this guy was heading to a secret rave. It's really hard to explain the type. He could of been wearing a faceless sort of mask. Lots of people do. I used to go to things like this. It's word of mouth. Look at mortal combat movie the night club scene where Sonia Blade is hunting down Kano. It's this sort of style of rave.
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Could have been... could have been.

If he was heading all the way up there on foot, alone, in sub-zero temperatures, then he definitely puts the hardcore into hardcore raver... I hope it was a good night for him!

Mythopoeika said:
There's a guy in my town who dresses exactly like that. He doesn't drive, so he walks everywhere. I've seen him out and about a lot.
I call him the goth cowboy, because that's his style.
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Does he often leave his face at home? If so, we could have another potential candidate...
 
Quercus said:
Does he often leave his face at home? If so, we could have another potential candidate...
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No, this guy does have a face, but he wears dark glasses at all times. Even in the dark.
 
The guy with no face. Some wear some proper weird things. I used to go to them in my late teens early 20's . They were a lot of fun. I stopped going because they stated to bring a bit of an SM side to it. There was always a slight sm feel to it but in the 90's that side was very melodramatic. A naked female Angel on a cross being wipped by naked devil woman. It was part of the show. But later down the line it started to get more sm in a very serious way. Yeah I didn't like it shame. I miss getting showered in fake blood, mostly sugar.You can't really dance if your tied up in chains.
 
To my mind the description conjured up an image of Carl McCoy circa Dawnrazor era Fields of the Nephilim
 

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I did suggest the faceless 'morph' suit on page one...
 
catseye said:
I did suggest the faceless 'morph' suit on page one...
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You did indeed... but I think I was just trying to make a weak joke upthread about a 'hardcore raver'. I'm still fairly sure it wasn't anything like that, but I'll try to explain why I think that's the case.

A total face covering/balaclava/morph suit would still have shown edges to the head, even if the features themselves were completely covered.

What I've been attempting to convey is the sense of nothingness there - and even when I summon a strong mental image of exactly what I saw in the car's door mirror, it's very hard to describe in words what this looked like.

There was a darkness above the clothing and below the hat. But there was no edge to the darkness. At some point, of course, the darkness must have faded out so I could see the clothing, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly where that happened. That was part of the strangeness. I would have expected someone out walking on a cold winter night to have a scarf pulled up over their nose and chin (I often do); but while there was a narrow scarf knotted overhand at the throat area and tucked in to the coat collar (a bit like a cravat, not a thick woolly scarf), above it was an absence of any form whatsoever.

Maybe the nothingness is easier to visualise if I describe it as 'black vapour'. That's not quite what it was - again, there seemed to be a depth that went way, way back beyond the hat, and why it seems wrong to describe it as vapour, which is a 'something' - because to my perception, it was a total absence of anything. But that's probably the best I can manage. No sharply defined edges, just an area surrounding where the head should have been, that seemed to transition fuzzily between visible and invisible light (anti-light?).

Of course, I can't rule out that the red brake lights weren't doing something weird to the scene. But everything else about the figure was lit very, very clearly - every fold and wrinkle in the coat was picked out as the figure walked towards me. Just the area between the collar and the hat still defies description for me.
 
Delighted to receive in this morning's post a copy of John Rackham's Brighton Ghosts, Hove Hauntings - True Ghost Stories from Brighton, Hove and Neighbouring Villages (Latimer Publications, Brighton, 2001), as quoted by @Spookdaddy upthread . It arrived from a bookseller in Portslade, quite near to where I used to live, which was a nice touch.

It's a whopping big hardback thing, over 350 pages in length, and even from a quick flick through it's clearly packed with well chosen and informative content, clearly indexed. I'm very suprised I didn't encounter it in all the years I was living locally, around the time it was published, since I was frequently in and out of bookshops in Brighton and Lewes and it would have very much been my thing.

As it was, I picked up a few softback 'Sussex Ghosts' type books by Peter Underwood and Judy Middleton, plus an odd little home-made pamphlet on 'Haunted Portslade', but didn't find them all that compelling and passed them on to a charity shop a number of years back (when I was done with the paranormal - or so I thought).

I'll enjoy reading through it properly soon enough - but I did flip quickly on to p.315 of Chapter 26, concerning Ditchling and Wivelsfield, to read with my own eyes the account from 1991 about the disappearing 'figure in brown' with a concealed face seen walking up the same road leading to the Beacon.

It's a fairly brief account, and doesn't contain any more detail than what's outlined way back on the first page of this thread, but it does feel curiously cathartic to discover that I'm not the only person to report a strange figure walking up that steep stretch of road. Of course, there are a number of differences between the description given by David Moore and the figure I believe I encountered, and so more questions are raised than answered by this discovery... but still.

I know it proves nothing paranormal - and the helpful and incisive responses on this thread have tipped me into feeling that, on balance, I most likely experienced some sort of a singular mental episode that night - but even so, it then poses the question of whether there's something about Ditchling Beacon which causes motorists to believe they've encountered such a figure?


While searching online for a copy of the Rackham book, I also turned up Haunted Brighton by Alan Murdie (The History Press, Stroud, 2006/ reprint 2011). I know that every urban centre across the British Isles seems to have their own entry in this series, all with the same cover - I have Haunted Belfast by Joe Baker and Haunted Edinburgh by Alan Murdie (him again) upstairs - and while they can sometimes come across as a bit sensationalist or prone to digression, they're often an entertaining starting point to exploring the lore of a given area. There were plenty of second-hand copies available at fairly reasonable prices, so a copy duly arrived.

I haven't progressed beyond the first couple of chapters, but a quick flick suggests there's no specific ghost stories set in the DitchIing area, let alone one with parallels to my experience (though the nearby Clayton rail tunnel and the section of the A23 at Whitegates get a look-in).

I was however interested to read in Chapter 1, concerning The Lanes, about the Grey Nun of Meeting House Lane, because witnesses have reported that "in the dark cavity of her hood there is no face". Similarly, a figure of a 'phantom monk in dark robes' has been reported multiple times in cellars and shops around The Lanes, with one account from a shopworker in the early 1950s recording "the disturbing detail that there was no head within the hood, only darkness".

Indeed, Murdie goes on to comment that "this seeming shyness of apparitions about displaying clear facial detail is a recurring feature in stories in Brighton and elsewhere" - which is an interesting point, and I'll be making a note of any other 'faceless ghosts' I find mentioned elsewhere in the book as I read through it.

I appreciate there may have been reasons of space to consider, but I'm mildly surprised that Murdie didn't include either of these tales in his FT385 article on faceless ghosts - the exclusion of Japanese faceless spirits I can understand, but this was something from one of his own books!

Edited for typo
 
Yes, it does come across as quite a different approach - using media clippings and previous publications as a starting point, but delving into stories with considerable depth and with his own commentary about obvious discrepancies and inconsistencies in accounts.

I've no problem with books which are more of a compendium of local lore, but it's nice to encounter one with a bit more substance to it!

Even the cover's not that bad, really...
 
Quercus said:
...Even the cover's not that bad, really...
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Maybe I was being a bit uncharitable. At least it's not....

...

...well, just in case you haven't reached that story in the Rackham book yet, let's just say - at least it's not a certain lady seen in a cellar in The Lanes.

That would put a reader right of their dinner.

Possibly for several days.
 
And just while I'm gathering together other accounts of motorists encountering faceless figures, I thought this one was worth transcribing.

I heard it on Episode 69 of The Ghost Story Guys Podcast – titled 'Pennies From Heaven (Or Thereabouts)’, and released on 15 October 2019.

The story begins 13m25s into podcast; I'm not sure if it's still available to listen to from the webpage, but it's available on Spotify and probably other podcast platforms, I'd imagine.

The story was sent in by ‘Jackie’, from a rural area of western Minnesota. No date is given, but from musical references it couldn't be earlier than 1991.

The story relates to an incident that occurred just before midnight on a solo car journey Jackie was making one Friday night, when she describes rounding a corner to see a figure walking on the narrow shoulder to the right-hand side of the road, travelling towards the direction of her car.

The figure appeared to be male, and was wearing a grey hoodie and jeans with the hands in the pockets. There was no acknowledgment of the oncoming car. She slowed slightly as she passed the figure, in case it was someone needing help, and when she looked closer she was chilled to realise that the figure had no face. Alarmed, she floored the car and on looking into the rear view mirror, was even more perturbed to see that the figure seemed to have vanished, with nowhere for it to have gone.

As she describes it:

“My first story is from an experience I had while driving through rural western Minnesota to visit my family. I was seventeen, lucky enough to have a car, and tried to spend as many summer weekends as possible with extended family on their hobby farm. Not because I was a city girl who craved a simple farm life, but because there was always a great party in a pole barn somewhere with cute country boys and a keg of beer – enough said.

“One Friday I finished work and, against the wishes and better judgement of my mom, I hopped in my car around 9pm and started on my three hour trek across the state. I’d made this drive many times before and the route was an easy one. My mostly flat, straight drive went without issue, until I got to the river valley town of Granite Falls.

The countryside is beautiful, with rolling hills and huge trees. The road winds through town, and follows the river for several miles through this loveliness. It’s always a welcome change of pace after the many miles of prairie. On this particular night the sun had long since gone down and I was enjoying wide open windows, Metallica, and basically the peace of basically being the only driver out there. The curved roads were hugged tightly by big trees, and are kinda famous for deer/car collisions, so I was driving below the 45 miles per hour speed limit, with my eyes carefully scanning the roadside – I had no desire for a close encounter with Bambi. Plus I was having a great time, and was in no hurry to do anything but drive and sing along with The Black Album on cassette.

It was around one of the corners that I saw a man walking on the side of the road. He was wearing jeans, a grey hoodie, and was near the right lane walking towards me on the narrow shoulder. I thought, “Okay – weird. Why would someone be walking out here close to midnight?”

No flashlight, no gas can, no crazy movements to attract my attention, or veer away to avoid my car. Maybe his vehicle broke down? Car crash? I was raised on ‘stranger danger’, and was not going to pull over to offer him a ride, but I could at least head into the nearest gas station and have someone help him. I slowed down to a crawl and turned off my high-beams. As I got closer to him his sweatshirt was pulled over his head, and his hands were in his front pocket. He just continued his slow and steady walk. Something felt wrong. This wasn’t okay. What kind of psychopath is out here at this hour in the dark, and doesn’t at least make some movement to acknowledge the presence of my oncoming Oldsmobile?

My chest tightened and my pulse raced. I realised my that windows were still rolled down, and that sweet teenage freedom of the open road quickly changed into a nightmare scenario. I was in the middle of nowhere with a strange man nearing my car. I no longer cared about helping this person. I felt vulnerable and terrified and I needed to get out of that spot. At this point he was right next to my passenger door, and in the middle of his hood, where I expected to see the deranged face of a serial killer, I saw something worse. There was nothing. Empty blackness. This dude had no face.

I hit the gas and looked in my rear view mirror, having one of those ‘oh shit oh shit oh shit’ moments. He was gone. Not in the ditch, not crouched down, not hiding, not running – he simply wasn’t there.

Yes, there were big trees nearby that probably would have hid someone if they so desired, but it would have taken more than a few seconds to get from the road to the woods. Nope. There was no trace of this menacing presence that was to my immediate right just moments ago. Deep down, I knew without a single shred of doubt that I saw an empty-headed sweatshirt and jeans where a corporeal body should have been. I experienced it in an all-consuming way that I couldn’t possibly have imagined.

I did safely get to my aunt and uncle’s farm and told one of my cousins about the creepy roadside attraction. He just shrugged it off. Jerk.”
Click to expand...

Again, not identical to my own experience, but there are certainly a few curious parallels. It was enough to make me suddenly prick up my ears and rewind it, anyway.

I've a feeling I may have to delve back into my copies of Sean Tudor's The Ghosts of Bluebell Hill and Other Road Ghosts; Peter McCue's Paranormal Encounters on Britain's Roads, and Ruth Roper Wylde's Roadmap of British Ghosts and see if I can turn up anything else relevant.

I've noticed a few quizzical glances from Mrs Quercus whenever another book arrives... she's aware of all this in my past, and was in the audience at the TenX9 event where I recounted this specific episode, but is probably now wondering what's going on...
 
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