In the city of Belvidere in Boone Country, Illinois there is an intersection that has been the site of many hauntings, particularly the Bloodspoint Road. Other roads included in this local haunting are Wheeler, Flora Church, Pearl, Poole, Sweeney, Cherry Valley, Stone Quarry, Fairdale, and Irene. It is believed that the hauntings on these roads are a result of a number of tragic and spooky events that happened there in the past. These events include hangings, suicide, various train accidents and the purported inhabitation of a witch.
Stocksbridge By-Pass
England
Stocksbridge By-pass is formerly part of the M67 motorway in England, it was then downgraded to a dual carriage way and today it is just a single carriage way. The road, which was finished being built in 1989, runs around north side of the Stocksbridge and its valley. It has been the location of many hauntings. Over time there have been sightings of children playing late at night under the bridge and a monk who just stands and looks out. One sighting of the monk prompted a police investigation which ultimately provided no explanation. Other people have heard the sounds of children singing in the vicinity when there are none to be seen. Perhaps most frighteningly are the reports of people driving who have suddenly noticed an apparition of the monk sitting beside them in the car!
M6 Motorway
England
To answer you question, yes, size does matter. Because in England, many people agree that the longest road is also its most haunted! Motorists making their way down this road have experienced unusual phenomena: Roman soldiers marching, an upset woman trying to hitch a ride, and lorry going the wrong way down the road! Apparently with 230 miles and 6 lanes, there is more than enough room for this parade of freaks. Next time you are utilizing the thoroughfare for travel, beware of a phantom pickup truck.
Tuen Mun Road
Hong Kong
Even if you don’t buy into the whole haunted roads business, you would be wise to exercise caution on this road. The road is very heavily used, yet it hasn’t been redesigned to take all of the modern traffic. It is notorious for it’s frequent traffic jams wrecks. And apparently, the ghosts are out to get you on top of this! Many claim that ghosts will suddenly appear in the middle of the road, causing the driver to swerve to avoid hitting the “person”. And to make matters worse, supposedly the ghosts of the crash victims are being added to the already high spirit count. Travel this road with caution, and keep an eye out for much less cautious “pedestrians”.
Highway 666
Utah, United States
Now known as Highway 191, the route (the sixth branch of the famous Route 66) is notorious for accidents, apparitions, and just plain bad luck. Linda Dunning writes on prairieghosts.com about an incident with her husband:
“He [author’s husband] was alone and hadn’t seen a car for miles and miles. Suddenly, he saw a truck that looked like it was on fire heading straight for him, right down the middle of the highway. The truck was going so fast that sparks were flying up off the wheels and flames were coming from the smokestack. It scared him so bad that he pulled way off the road and walked 20 feet or so out into the desert away from his car and waited for the truck to pass him, going what he estimated was 130 miles an hour. He then got back into his car and continued on.”
If you aren’t careful, hell hounds will shred your tires. A young girl walking down the road will vanish if you try to help her. If you are alone, a ghost may just take up residence in your back seat. Dunning has this to say for you advice:
“Take a lot of people with you and don’t leave any space for unwanted passengers who just might decide to appear in your backseat. Pull off the road if a huge diesel truck comes barring down on you from either direction. Don’t be curious to see if there is a driver in that single car passing you in the night. Don’t look for lights floating in the sky. Hope you don’t see any young girls in white dresses. Never stop if you spot something peculiar and don’t pick up hitchhikers. Lastly, if demon dogs approach you in the night, just keep driving.”
A229 from Sussex to Kent
England
“In November 1992 Ian Sharpe was heading up the A229 from Sussex into Kent. A girl in white with “beautiful eyes” stepped in front of his car and she disappeared under the front Wheels. In total despair Sharpe stopped the car believing he had killed her and was powerless to help.
On leaving the car he found nothing there. No girl, no body no white dress – or even any wildlife; a fox a badger or a rabbit. Not a sausage… I think you get the point.”
If you are faint of heart, this road is not recommended. Another contender for England’s most haunted road is A229. The local constabulary are not strangers to calls of people plowing into pedestrians, more specifically, a woman in white, only to lose track of the body. If you are passing Lower Bell pub towards Maidstone, don’t be too surprised if that hitchhiker vanishes before you reach your destination. The ghost lady is generally regarded as that of Judith Langham, who was tragically killed in a collision of her wedding day, still in her dress.
Trucker Ghost Stories
Being on the road for sometime has led to the rising of famous ghost stories. Stories that make one believe that the roads and highways are haunted or cursed. More and more truck drivers are narrating stories of ghost stories while on one of their many trips on the road. Let us look at a few that have hit the attention of most people.
1. The phantom of the truck stop- This mind gripping story about a trucker who decided to stop for a fourteen-hour break instead of his usual ten. Haunting in its own way is a story about a truck driver who had an unusual encounter with what is described as an inhuman creature like a girl. Terrified with the encounter the trucker fled the scene and never looked back. Make sure to read about this story.
2. Harbinger for truckers – A true story about a trucker on one of his usual trips. This story is about a trucker believed to have seen the shape of a dog while on a trip. The dog was believed also to be seen by other tired and worn out drivers during the night.
3. Demon in Texas – a scary story that takes place on what was known to be an Indian burial ground. Chills will run down your back as you read this story.
For more stories like the above, you can get yourself a copy of the book titled Trucker Ghost Stories, by Annie Wilder. Get to read about the real experiences narrated by truck drivers. You can also get online resources that will provide other many ghost stories to fascinate you. It will be up to you to know whether the story is true or just lies. Sometimes these truckers are just too tired and might start imagining things or sometimes it might be really happening
Truckers Share True Ghost Stories from the Road
Truckers log thousands of hours behind the wheel and encounter everything from bad weather and treacherous roads to fatal accidents and careless drivers. However, sometimes even truckers are shocked by what they see on the road. Here are five true ghost stories from real truckers.
Knock, Knock
“Last week, I had just left Gallup, NM and was driving west on I-40 near Holbrook, AZ when I heard a KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, two times, on the side of my sleeper. It was very loud and distinct…like ONE, TWO, THREE, and then it repeated once more shorty after that. I had the radio off and was alone in the rig. Honestly, I thought ‘KEEP DRIVING!’ was the best thing to do. When I got to Holbrook, I stopped for a break but was too freaked to get out and go look. The next day, I walked around the cab and was looking at the cat walk.
There is no way a human being could have been hiding back there, at 3 a.m., in 10 degree freezing winter weather, going 70 mph, without anyone noticing.
I LOGGED THIS ONE AS UNEXPLAINED!”
A True Truck Driver Ghost Story
On or around the year 2000, I was running a bid run from Gallipolis, Ohio, to Evansville, Indiana through Cincinnati, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana. One night I was headed home around 3:00 AM on route 32E., about three or four miles west of Sardenia, Ohio.
I was running along about 67 mph when I passed a flat bed tractor and trailer running along about 55 mph, which was the speed limit. About three quarters of a mile behind me and still behind the flat bed truck, I noticed flashing lights coming up behind us, more specifically they were red lights. As they grew closer I noticed it was the old type that spun horizontally round and round. As anyone would know today, if its not blue, then you don’t worry to much. They grew closer and closer so thinking it was an emergency vehicle of some sort I did slow down to 55 just to be safe.
The cruiser came right up behind me then crossed the yellow line and then pulled directly behind me. At this point I thought may be, I had some lights out, after all I always ran a radar detector so he could not have radared me. I turned on my four ways and started for the right berm and he followed me. Now God being my witness this really happened:
I set my brakes, turned on the dome, released my seat belt and picked up my light. I looked into my mirrors, I did not see anyone get out of the car. I opened my door and stepped out of my truck. I started back towards the car and just abreast of my drive axle I froze. I bent over looking in under the trailer and then threw my very bright mag. light all around. Guess what, there was nothing back there and thinking may be he had went off the road behind me out in the grass I looked there. There was nothing.
The weird part is, I ran this road all the time and I knew it well. There was no place he could have turned around or turned off. Needless to say, I headed for the cab of my truck on the run. I jumped in my rig and took off and getting on the radio, I tried to call the flat bed I had passed and see if he saw this cop car or what ever but he didn’t answer.
Later on I asked a couple Highway Patrol cops if they knew of any cops getting killed around there and needless to say they had not and they both give me a look of disbelief. Some of my friends asked me what sort of drugs I was taking. I was not. This happened and it is a very very true story. And incidentally, this is only one of many stories of things which have happened to me throughout my life.
The Man on Jensen Road
“It was about 3 a.m., and I was west bound on Jensen Road in Fresno, CA, just before the residential area. I had slowed to about 40 mph when out of nowhere appeared this freakishly tall figure of a man in a black, buttoned up trench coat and a round, black sombrero standing on the white line of the two lane road. He must have been at least 6’7″ or 7’0 tall. My partner and I watched and he didn’t even flinch as the rig passed by. I swear, the side mirrors must have missed his head by only a couple of inches. My partner and I looked at each other with our eyes wide open and screamed ‘Did you see that?! What the fuck was that?’. I swear our skin crawled and we were both in a kind of shock. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple days.”
Highway 666
Utah, United States
Now known as Highway 191, the route (the sixth branch of the famous Route 66) is notorious for accidents, apparitions, and just plain bad luck. Linda Dunning writes on prairieghosts.com about an incident with her husband:
“He [author's husband] was alone and hadn’t seen a car for miles and miles. Suddenly, he saw a truck that looked like it was on fire heading straight for him, right down the middle of the highway. The truck was going so fast that sparks were flying up off the wheels and flames were coming from the smokestack. It scared him so bad that he pulled way off the road and walked 20 feet or so out into the desert away from his car and waited for the truck to pass him, going what he estimated was 130 miles an hour. He then got back into his car and continued on.”
If you aren’t careful, hell hounds will shred your tires. A young girl walking down the road will vanish if you try to help her. If you are alone, a ghost may just take up residence in your back seat. Dunning has this to say for you advice:
“Take a lot of people with you and don’t leave any space for unwanted passengers who just might decide to appear in your backseat. Pull off the road if a huge diesel truck comes barring down on you from either direction. Don’t be curious to see if there is a driver in that single car passing you in the night. Don’t look for lights floating in the sky. Hope you don’t see any young girls in white dresses. Never stop if you spot something peculiar and don’t pick up hitchhikers. Lastly, if demon dogs approach you in the night, just keep driving.”
The Guardian Angel
“In the late 80’s, Michigan had I-94 west of Detroit all torn up as they were completely replacing the roadbed.
I was going into Detroit about 2 a.m., driving in the construction zone, when I saw this heavy-set elderly lady in a rain coat standing behind her car in the construction zone waving her arms for me to stop. I had almost passed the elderly lady when I saw her and couldn’t stop. So I turned around at the next exit and circled back and pulled up behind the broken down car with my four-ways on.
Two heads popped up from behind the seats and a young guy came back to the truck. I told him to get everyone out of the car and I would take them to a gas station where they could get some help. He got his wife from the car and they got into my truck and shut the passenger door.
I looked at them and said, ‘Is that everybody? Where is the elderly lady?’ The couple looked puzzled and asked what I was talking about. So I told them the story of the elderly lady flagging me done and described her to the couple.
Immediately the woman burst into tears and said that she had heard that guardian angels look like deceased relatives. She went on to explain that her grandmother had passed away earlier that year and I had just described her grandmother to a ‘T.’
This story still gives me goose bumps thinking about it all these years later.
I can’t wait to meet that elderly lady someday. I did something right that night, for once in my life.”
How old is that story, bro?: Trucking tales, legends, ghosts.
Truckers love to tell stories. The seasoned vets especially love to booger newbies with awful tales, full of ghastly appearances and cops who tell them to run over parked cars or be issued tickets. You can’t get truckers to agree on much of anything other than their urban legends, and even those have endless variations, depending on what part of the country you happen to be in. As it turns out, most of these stories have origins rooted firmly in ancient tales that have been told for hundreds of years.
Everyone on the road has heard the “Legend of the Black Dog.” The black dog supposedly comes when a truck driver has been driving too long and starts to fall asleep at the wheel. He or she will see the ghoul running toward the truck, just before the crash. The apparition causes the driver to steer off the road, or into traffic, and results in an accident that kills the truck driver or an innocent person.
The origins of the black dog are difficult to pin down, though in various pieces of European mythology dogs have been associated with death. Their scavenging habits may attribute to these beliefs, as well as the fact that black dogs are seen almost universally as malevolent. It’s possible the black dog legend is a throwback to a belief held by couriers of freight as far back as Egyptian times.
The vanishing hitchhiker is the story of a hitchhiker who has died in a terrible accident and returns in ghostly form to the scene. In some versions of the legend, a truck driver will stop to pick the hitchhiker up and take them to their designated location. When dropped off, the hitchhiker leaves some kind of personal article on the truck, like a sweater or a book bag. The driver will return the object to the place they dropped the hitchhiker off, only to be told the owner of the personal item is a child or friend of whoever lives there and they’ve been dead for some time, due to a tragic accident on whichever road the trucker picked them up on.
In the song “Phantom 309,” Red Sovine sings about thumbing a ride with a trucker who tells him to make sure the people at the truck stop he drops him off at know who sent him. When Red informs the truck stop crowd of his driver, a waiter tells him the story of a driver who died after crashing his rig to avoid a school bus full of kids at the intersection he was picked up at. The waiter tells the hiker that he wasn’t the first; the ghost of Big Joe had been known to pick up other hitchhikers over the years.
Sovine also recorded “Bringing Mary Home,” in which he picks up a young woman standing by the road on a stormy night, only to have her disappear before he reaches the address she gives him. Her mother answers the door and tells him that he is the 13th man who has come to her, bringing Mary home.
According to folklorists, the vanishing hitchhiker/driver stories may have evolved from earlier European yarns, usually about travelers on horseback. A version of the story actually appears in the Bible (Acts 8:26-39), wherein an Ethiopian driving a chariot picks up the Apostle Philip, who baptizes him and disappears. As time rolled on and the story continued to be told, the chariots, wagons and horseback of yesteryear became the big rigs of today.
Truckers can also be the heroes of urban legends. In one such story, a nasty biker gang harasses a trucker in a restaurant. The trucker says nothing, pays his bill and leaves. One biker brags to the proprietor, “He wasn’t much of a man, was he?” Looking out the window, the owner says, “No, he’s not much of a driver either. He just backed over your bikes.”
This basic plot line shows up in our favorite trucking movies like Smokey and the Bandit and Every Which Way But Loose, and versions of the story have been set in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. Rather than preach the Christian message of “turn the other cheek,” these stories encourage temporary meekness, only to strike back against the prized possessions of the tormentor. Again, there are several European legends involving the same methods, dating back hundreds of years.
Reports of spirits leading truckers to safety are varied and different versions develop as they are told by different drivers. One particularly inspiring story involves a young man, fairly new to trucking, who gets hung up in a blinding snowstorm in the Kansas flat lands. Just as he’s about to pull over and stop on what he hopes is the side of the road, someone comes on the CB who sounds remarkably like his deceased father (who had also been a trucker) and tells him to follow the taillights, which he des, and they lead him safely to a truck stop. The guy grabs his jacket and jumps out of the truck to tell the other driver thank you, and even though there were two sets of tracks in the snow, his is the only truck around.
Soldiers in battle often relate these types of experiences, either being warned of danger or directed away from danger by familiar spirits who have passed. The Vikings had tales of the Goddess Vor (meaning “careful one” or “aware”), who assisted in their conquests by warning of treachery and ill-will before it befell them.
Mark Twain said, “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
The same holds true for our legends and stories, which is why they continue to be told throughout the ages of time. So beware, newbies, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last to hear about Large Marge….
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Off the bat, I didn't like the area, but had no other choice. The bathrooms were unkempt and had enough graffiti on the walls to classify itself as an inner-city truck stop, even though I was practically in the middle of nowhere. It was also a small stop, with parking for only a dozen trucks. After washing up, I purchased a new work knife, some hot food and headed out to my truck.
I sat in the captain's
chair and listened to the radio while I ate my dinner with the windows down, letting in the dry wind. The Mississippi River had just begun flooding, but there hadn't been any rain in over a week. The surrounding area was beginning to look like Nevada more than Arkansas.
I finished my meal and cleaned up a bit. I slid out of the seat and onto the pavement as a gust of warm wind hit me. I strolled over to the dumpster, tossed my garbage inside and began slowly walking back to my truck. I fished out a filterless cigarette and leaned against the bug-splattered side of my truck and lit it with my lighter. I enjoyed the smoke as I watched the sun set below the horizon. A few more trucks had backed into spots. I spotted one guy walking out of the store with a bottle of beer in his hand, looking around nervously as he quickly strode over to his truck. The life of a trucker. Something interesting and new every day. Risking his job over one, lousy beer.
I climbed back into the cab of the truck, dropped back into the sleeper berth, changed into a pair of pajamas and lay down to get some rest. I didn't bother setting an alarm. I felt sleep creep over me and accepted it as I drifted off into dreamworld.
JOLTED AWAKE
I awoke with the cab of the truck rocking violently, knocking the bottle of water I had placed on my "nightstand" over onto the floor. I sat straight up, fully awake and pressed the button on the truck's radio/alarm. It was shortly after three in the morning. I reached down and grabbed the bottle of water that had fallen, twisted the cap off and took a few deep gulps before wondering what had rocked my truck so violently. Then I remembered: the wind. I settled back down, got my heart rate back below a hundred and lay my head down on the pillow. The truck rocked again, knocking my ashtray over that I had set in the cup holder and once again tossing my water bottle onto the floor.
I flipped on the overhead light, slid on my shoes and grabbed another cigarette from my pack. I opened the curtains, sat in the captain's chair and shut off the sleeper light. I opened the door and noticed that it had cooled down considerably. I shut off the truck, pocketed the keys and climbed down onto the pavement to look around.
At this time of night, the truck stop only had lights around the gasoline pumps, and their light could not reach the truck parking area. I looked around a moment, lit my cigarette... and then noticed something. The wind had stopped blowing. I wondered what had caused my truck to rock so violently. Earthquake maybe? I knew that a few had been reported around Memphis, and I was probably close enough to have felt a tremor, but that rocking motion did not feel like an earthquake. It felt like the wind hitting the side of my truck with a strong gust.
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Off the bat, I didn't like the area, but had no other choice. The bathrooms were unkempt and had enough graffiti on the walls to classify itself as an inner-city truck stop, even though I was practically in the middle of nowhere. It was also a small stop, with parking for only a dozen trucks. After washing up, I purchased a new work knife, some hot food and headed out to my truck.
"The creepiest I had was back in 2008 moving from Seattle to DC.
Route was down to Portland, then I84 to I80 to I76 to I70 to I270. Immediately heading out of Portland I passed an old F100 going very slow in primer black with no license plates. Cool truck I thought and didn't really pay it any mind. I noticed about an hour later that the same truck was a couple car lengths behind me...odd. After getting back to some open roads he disappeared into the distance behind me.
First night I stopped somewhere in Idaho. Shitty cheap local motel and I'm the only one there. Wake up the next morning and parked one spot away from me is that primered F100.
Take off, continuing my trek southeast. Every single time I stop for gas, at a rest stop, or get slowed down for traffic the old Ford shows up in my rear-view mirror again. It's bizarre.
Nearing the end of Nebraska I pull over and get gas and decide to drive one more tank then stop for the day. Pull back onto the highway and Mr. Truck is right there shadowing me again. About 30 minutes later I realize I'm too tired to get to the end of the tank and decide to stop in the next town just over the border in Iowa. As I'm getting off I see the pickup pass on carrying down the highway. Guess he has more endurance than I do.
Wake up the next morning...you know what's coming...the damned truck is in the hotel parking lot again. Up to this point I just figured I was driving hare to his tortoise and we just happened to be making the same West-East trip. Now I had that weird light feeling in my stomach...like something was just off. I ask the clerk when turning in my keys what's up with the truck?...when had it come in?... She says she wasn't working last night and wasn't sure (and also probably thought I was crazy...which maybe I was).
Anyhow, at that point I figure it must be a coincidence and this has to be a different truck. I mean there were a lot of F100s made and there's bound to be a couple in the country that are primer black running with no plates. As I go to head out I see the truck turning out of the parking lot in the direction that leads him away from the highway. Couldn't have been the same one from before...the guy didn't turn in his keys so he was probably staying locally.
Get back on the highway. No truck. Run to the end of the tank stop and get gas and some snacks. Get back on...and I merge in two cars in front of a primer black F100. What...the...hell.
At that point I decide...screw it, I'm marathoning the rest of the way. It's less than 20 hours so it shouldn't be so bad and I don't want to stay at another shitty motel with strange ghost truck stalking me.
The pattern continues with the truck showing up behind me every single time I take a break or get gas or get slowed in traffic. It's dark when I get to the I70/270 split and the old headlights are glowing back on the horizon. I know it's him. I wonder if it's going to follow me down 270 and be parked down the street near my house the next morning when I wake up. Alas, the truck continues on 70 and I never see it again.
Looking back it was probably a confluence or coincidence... it still feels really odd to me though because it's not like there were a lot of F100s doing interstate runs in 2008. I also realized that I never got a good look at the driver. Not that there was no driver, but in my memories all I see is an indistinct human shaped thing driving an old truck that stalked me for 3000 miles."
9.) Driving Through Hurricane Sandy
I was lucky enough to be inside during Hurricane Sandy, even if I was without power. Reader Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole had to brave the storm:
"I got deployed to NJ just before that bitch Sandy showed up. For some reason, the powers that be decided it would be smart for us to have hotels in Neptune (See Atlantic Coast), but work in the state Emergency Operations Center in Trenton (See Pennsylvania side of NJ).
The day before landfall, a co-worker (Mike) and I drove separately to Trenton, mainly because he had a van full of Comm gear and no spare seats. Just before I left to go back to the hotel, I decided to grab a couple MRE's from his van for when the power went out. As I was coming back into the building to give him the keys, Gov. Chris Christie was walking through the atrium of the building to give a press conference. I wasn't about to barge through his entourage to give the keys back to Mike, so I asked one of the other guys who was standing outside smoking to make sure Mike got the keys to the van as soon as he was done smoking. This was at about 6pm the evening before landfall, and Sandy's outer bands were just starting to show up.
At 9:30pm that night, I got a call from Mike asking, "Hey, where'd you put those van keys?" Mike ended up working late that night (he was dealing with a lot of logistical stuff) and apparently the guy I gave the keys to, didn't get them to Mike. By now, Sandy's winds were really kicking but I told Mike I'd be there as soon as I could. When I had driven to Neptune earlier that night, I made an observation about I-195. Tons of tall trees on the sides of the roadsand open median in the middle. It's a good thing I noticed and remembered that.
Now I've driven in a couple of hurricanes, and it's not THAT big of a deal. Unless it's pitch black out. Getting down to I-195 via the GSP wasn't bad, some branches on the road, maybe a tree limb here and there. I'm not that stupid, so I'm only doing about 40 mph in the left lane once I'm on I-195 and then it happened.
I literally yelled, "WHATTHEFUCKOHMYGODHOLYSHITFUCKINGHELL!!" In the pitch black of that night, with the wind howling and the rain coming down, the top of a tree appeared in front of me. Luckily it was only about 1-2 feet into my lane (the other 30+ feet of it was completely blocking the right lane) and I wasn't driving like an idiot. Lather rinse repeat about another dozen times on the way to Trenton. And at least another dozen (including one on a blind corner) on the way back to Neptune. The roundtrip took roughly 4 hours that night, Google is telling me it's 48 minutes one way right now. I changed my shorts when I got back to my powerless hotel, and slept for about an hour when I was awoken by a phone call saying we needed to get to work ASAP because the President had declared the disaster. Thankfully, we only had to report to our alternate location near Neptune after that call and not Trenton."
8.) This Isn't Happening'
That's what foxbody said, as his truck rolled before he knew what was going on.
"Going to get a damn Christmas tree with my then-GF, driving my then-beautiful '85 Yota. It's been snowing, but the roads are pretty clear. I'm cruising at maybe 50 around a gentle bend, which leads to a bridge. There's a little bump where the concrete transitions to the bridge, this happens to mark where a large patch of black ice starts. Soon as the rear tires hit the bump, the rear end pops out 90 degrees, and the car slides sideways directly through the oncoming lane of traffic, at the guard rail. I have enough time to say 'holy shit this isn't happening' before I hit the guardrail head-on, which flips the truck and it begins rolling. Rolled maybe 4 or 5 times down the whole length of the bridge, ending up on the shoulder of the opposite site of the road, 2 feet from sliding down a cliff towards a little river.
Roll cage saved my life, I'm pretty sure."
7.) Who Put A Couch In The Road?
A couch is one of the last things you'd expect to see in the middle of a road, and Takuro Spirit - Trans Camry didnt' see it until after he'd hit it.
"The time I was most scared behind the wheel was when I hit a dark object on a dark road at high speed... not knowing what I was about to hit.
It was a late night. Midnight. Dark three lane highway. Sparse traffic.
I had been at a female friend's house as was my usual weekend routine, about 90 miles from home. I had taken my oft-reliable but oil consuming (see my past stories for the time on the same highway that I wore a lobe off the camshaft) 1977 Firebird Esprit on the trip as I always had.
Driving southbound on highway 41 outside of Appleton, near the Neenah Menasha exit (yes, the same exit the band Sponge titled a song after), I was following an S-Blazer in the center lane when suddenly, BRAKE LIGHTS. The S-Blazer swerved hard left, as a car that had been in front of the Blazer went hard right, and spun off the road down an embankment. This I did not much see. Why? Because in the center lane, dead ahead of me, was a large black rectangle. Focusing on that, my vision narrowed.
My mind had few precious seconds to compile all the info around me, and to guess at what I was about to run into, and how not to, and there were few options. With a car outbraking me to my left (the Blazer) and a car spinning off the road to the right (whatever it was), I had to go straight. And brake. And close my eyes. Was is a flipped over car? A garbage dumpster? What else would be on the highway in the middle of the WHAM!!!!!
I made contact. It was loud. But...not as loud as I would have thought. I opened my eyes, I was still slowing. I remember looking down at my speedo and seeing 50-ish. I had been doing about 70-ish. I let off the brake, as I seemed to be out of harms way, except for the awful screechy metally scraping noise. I shifted to neutral, shut off the engine, thinking something may have punctured the radiator, or the fan was now hitting it causing the noise, turned on the flashers (good ol fashion pull knob!), and made my way to the right shoulder.
The Blazer pulls up behind me.
A lady gets out.
"Are you okay?!?!" she yells from her car as I exit my Firebird, and look around to assess the situation.
There is light traffic, now slowing, driving through a debris field strewn across the highway. There is the Blazer behind me, and farther back a tow truck already on the side of the road. Odd.
"I'm okay...." I answer
"You hit that thing head on! It blew apart, it was crazy!"
"Hit what?" I ask, still in shock and trying to register still what is going on exactly.
"The couch. You hit that couch." She points to the freeway.
I focus on the debris, and see cushions. Wood. Fabric. Debris.
I decimated that shit. YESSS.
I make my way around the front of the car, and see my headlights are no longer pointed straight, my hood is buckled, my composite material nose askew. And I see fluid dripping. Fuck. I kneel down, and at this time the tow truck driver approaches. I see metal, under my car.... it's the springs and frame from the couch. They are tangled in my transmission cooler lines, which have now been forcefully pulled out of my radiator. Fuuuuuuuu
"Did you not see it?!?!"
Huh?
The tow truck driver, who first noticed the couch getting dropped off someone's trailer stopped and had just begun to shine his spotlight on it to warn traffic as we approached, and took it out.
"No... there was a car in front...." I mumble. Still trying to understand all this... I mean, this is my first "accident" and all.
"Where's the other car?" he asks. We look down the embankment. There's a church. With a car parked on the access road. There's a guy. Trudging through the weeds to climb up to us.
He's okay.
He actually hit the couch, and knocked it to where it was before I hit it, before he spun off the road. So he says. His car is fine.
The Blazer is fine.
My car is not.
State Patrol arrives, and assesses the situation, gets all our info, and starts to write out a report. Everyone is getting ready to leave and I cannot. I can't get the couch parts untangled from my car. I ask the tow truck driver.... not for a tow, but just to lift it up high enough so I can get under it, and pull the shit out. I have tools....
He obliges. I tip him and say thanks. Most of the debris has been cleared by State Patrol and passing cars. I walk back to my car and see something waving in the wind. It's a small piece of batting, stuck to my radio antenna. I take it off. I put it in the glove box.
I drive to the next exit, flipping on my highbeams to see just how badly my lights are now misaligned. I brighten up the retaining wall, the street, the sky.
I stop at the gas station off the exit and purchase a bottle of ATF, and check my trans level. It's dripping, but its not pouring out, even when running. Thankfully there were SOME threads left and the lines are not completely pulled out anymore.
I limp home, stopping every once and awhile to check the ATF level. It's good every time. Yay.
I get home, park in my parent's driveway, and go to bed."
6.) Just Hold It
Sometimes it's better to just hold it in rather than risk the unknown like Moves-Like-Senna did:
"I was visiting my girlfriend several hours northwest of Montreal and the weekend was over so I set out driving South on Autoroute 117 from Val D'or in Quebec at about 2AM on a Monday morning.
Anyone who has driven the road knows just how bare it is and how isolated you are. It's not abnormal to speed excessively as there are very few police officers, no cell reception, no gas stations for a 190 mile stretch and emergency SOS phones every dozen miles or so.
As mentioned it was 2 AM and I was blasting down the highway pushing my rental 2014 Hyundai Sonata to its limits. I'd downed 2 Monsters and half a gallon of water nearly 2 hours earlier and well, to ensure I stayed awake I held off from a bathroom break until I finally needed one.
Keeping my eye out for any roads or trails, I kept spotting flashes of lights in the woods. It was a clear night with a full moon so I just kept telling myself they were probably just highway markers set too close together and that if I pull over there'd be no worries.
After a good 20 minutes of stammering around trying to not soil the seat of the Sonata I was confined to for 6 more hours, I SLAMMED on the brakes! A single dirt road, barely wide enough for an Aveo but I decided to give it a shot. I was desperate!
Rather than just stopping on the bare highway and doing my business, I pulled in and started to go through the trail thanking myself for choosing the full coverage, non-fault insurance as the bushes scrapped and thwarted the sides of the car and the bottom occasionally getting caught on a rock.
After a few minutes, some fog started to set in and the trail had gotten wider but muddier I hit the gas and got through a half foot deep mud pit and found a spot where I could stop and then turn around. I got out holding my self between the legs leaving the car door open and fighting off the bugs to go pee across the trail.
OH MY GOD! YES JUST FUCK YES, it was the best feeling in the world. I was overcome with glee and relief but then... I hear a thud... mid-stream my car door had closed. It couldn't have just been nothing as I climbed up the bank to park so the door was held open by gravity but I shrugged my shoulders and told myself it was the wind even though there was none.
I reached in my pocked to double check I had the keyfob which I did and my cellphone as well and for some reason I started to feel a tingling on the back of my neck.... and I looked up.
More road markers... but on the trail...in the fog... in the woods....they were eyes.. first one pair then three.. I zipped up and ran to the car but the car was locked? I left it unlocked and the door open. WHAT WAS HAPPENING!??!?!?!
I turn around and there's three wolves staring at me with my dress shirt sticking out of my fly. TWO terrifying things 1) the wolves in front of me 2) I just tore my Hugo Boss dress shirt. I clicked the keyfob button in my pocket, unlocked the door and calmly stepped in...
HOLY SHIT... FINALLY some sheet metal between me and the wolves. I was sweaty, I'd dribbled on my work pants and tore my shirt... great. At least I was safe. I went to start the car and it wouldn't start. Nothing, no turn over or anything. This was a brand new 2014 Sonata and I was the first renter.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone after a few tries with nothing and as I mentioned there's no reception, no police, almost no traffic and I'm in the middle of a friggen ATV trail and my car wouldn't start. What next?
BATS! That's what. FUCKING BATS! There were fucking bats in the car. Now I'm sitting in the car with my phone screen on unable to call 911 and several bats flying around me and three wolves still outside my car staring at me make a fool of myself. Panicking I decided to start swatting the bats. Have you ever swatted bats? This was a first for me but man is it disgusting.
It's furry and greasy at the same time and you feel their skin on yours too. Throw in the fact they're trying to bite and scratch you and they can practically see in the dark.
After a well fought battle, I got enough of them on the ground that I could try and start the car again. I inched my door open a crack, re-closed it to reset the lights and tried the key again. IT WORKED! YES HOME FREE!!! I shoved it into drive turned the wheel left, honked at the wolves and mashed it to get the car turned around.
I started heading back down the trail but suddenly there's HALF A DOZEN WOLVES chasing me from behind and I opened the windows to get the bats out. I reached the highway with everything clamouring around, the car banging anything it could and bats flying out the window.
Too preoccupied with the pack of wolves chasing me, and bats still flying around I didn't notice the semi truck headed north and flew right on to the highway crossing his path and I'd just missed getting hit by a mere few inches. I almost soiled the seat... again.
I continued to drive south fighting off the bats at 30mph to get away from the wolves and finally they were gone. I closed up the windows sped up to a speed that isn't exactly legal trying to catch my breath to make sense out of what just happened.
For 5 hours I drove in silence until I arrived at a parking lot near work in downtown Montreal. Bloodied with bat shit on me, smelling like urine, a torn shirt still sticking through my fly, muddied dress shoes, exhausted and panicked I walked into the office to start my Monday morning."
The stars aligned in the worst way possible for reader High Road. His truck "caught fire and started a 1500 acre wildfire." The truck backfired going into low gear which and ignited because of a leak in the gas tank.
4.) Check Your GPS Before You Set Off
Be sure you know which way you're going, otherwise you could end up in great danger like bobrayner did:
"Driving through a minefield whilst arguing with the codriver about which route had been cleared of mines, there was definitely one mine-free route, um, I remember seeing somebody post a GPS trail on the internet, err, wasn't it over there? All this sand and scrub looks the same..."
3.) Code Brown
This story from PNW20v is why companies like Volvo are devloping airbags that work outside of the car:
"Back on Labor day weekend I had a homeless man very literally run out into traffic in front of me. I was going through a stop light intersection in a marked 35 zone. He ran out from in front of a car that was turning left from the same direction of traffic as me.
I hit him with my drivers quarter panel at a full skid at about a 45 degree angle.
Have you ever had a person come through your windshield, so hard their head comes within inches of your face? Terrifying. Getting out and seeing a man with 2 compound fractured legs and bleeding from multiple orifices on his head? Scariest experience of my life, involving a car or not. Only silver lining of it all, I was 100% cleared by security footage on a near by business. Didn't even get a ticket."
2.) 'You Are Going To Die Tonight'
Those are six words you never want to hear shouted at you while you're driving. Reader phimuskapsi did, and lives to tell the tale.
"One night, I'm out getting gas, and after I leave I pull up to a red light behind a beater car and we are both turning right onto a two-lane highway. We both make the right, his car doesn't go very fast so I head for the left lane. He blocks me. I head for the right lane. He immediately kills his signal and cuts me off again. This continues for a little while before I get annoyed, gun it and go to pass him. Again, while in the process of passing, this guy takes a dive at my car which slows me down. He's yelling at me out his window, "YOU AREN'T PASSING ME MOTHERFUCKER!!!!" and laughing manically. We get caught at another light and he starts chucking stuff at my car, I check the traffic and gun it through the red, I'm sufficiently creeped out now. His car seems to be faster than I initially thought and he is keeping up with me through traffic. In desperation I start turning off side-streets, and he is following me. We get to another light and I ask what his problem is and he screams, literally, screams "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE TONIGHT." Holy fuck.
So I chuck an old coffee into his car, turn off my lights and take the fuck off as fast as I can go. At this point stop lights aren't a concern anymore, I WANT to be pulled over. I'm ripping through little towns at 100MPH (in 25 and 30 zones) and starting to lose him, finally duck into another side street, somehow find a driveway that goes next to a garage, pull up next to the garage, lights off (car on), and wait...1 minute....3 minutes. 10 minutes.
I finally get home about 45 minutes later, white as a ghost, call the police (didn't have my cell at the time) and report him in. I never found out what happened, I never saw him again. Literally thought I was going to be murdered...for nothing."
If you've ever been tempted to drive tired, OneFastPuertoRican's story will scare you straight:
"Spring Break 1997, I was heading out to Houston from Lubbock and looking forward to a nice week of doing nothing. With a few stops, the drive should take about 8.5-9 hours. The plan was to stop in Austin for the night at a good friend's house and head out to Houston (2.5 hrs) in the morning. For the record, I'm driving an '85 Sentra hatchback (no AC, no cruise control, thanks Dad!)
Due to work commitments, I couldn't leave Lubbock until about 6pm. I stopped at a friend's house for a quick bite before hitting the road. It's now 7pm.
The drive itself was very uneventful until I get to Austin. About 12:30 am I reach Austin and find a bank of pay phones (before the era of everyone has a cellphone). I called him to say 'I'm not tired. Really. Gonna make the short drive to Houston.'
He says 'Are you sure? It's pretty late man.'
Me: 'Yeah, I'm good. Call you in the morning when I'm in H-town'
I hang up and fill up the tank before heading out again. It's now 1 am.
At 2:30 am I reach Brenham and can barely keep my eyes open. I'm doing every trick in the book: loud music, window open, slapping face, punching myself. Nothing's working.
Just past Brenham on 290 is a combination levee/bridge highway designed to keep the freeway high and dry during big floods. Pictured above but in dead of night with no lights whatsoever.
The last thing I remember was closing my eyes and opening them suddenly to see my car plunging down the levee with me inside. I must have been doing 60-70 MPH when I went downhill. Luckily the high grass kept me from either overturning/nailing the bottom of the levee.
So I've stopped about 15 feet from the bottom of the levee. It's the middle of the night and no one can see my car down the embankment. No cell phone. No witnesses. Car won't start. Fuck…..
After a quick check on myself, I get out of the car and stumble out the driver-side door. I start climbing up the levee to flag down someone to help. Yeah right. People are just gonna stop when they see some 'mexican-looking fellow' waving his arms in the middle of nowhere at 2:45 am.
Finally, an 18-wheeler stops and I borrow his cell phone. I call my Dad (who's unsure of what to do, thanks Pop) then call a wrecker to pull my car out. The trucker offers to wait until the wrecker arrives but I get really creeped out just sitting there so I say, Yeah, I'm good. I'll wait by the side of the road."
The trucker leaves and I'm all alone again. After a few minutes, I realize that I'll probably be waiting for an hour for the wrecker so I decide to get back in my car and see if I can't throw it in reverse.
Not sure if I had an angel on my shoulder, but the car fired right up! As I threw it into reverse, it truly felt like a Christmas miracle. All the way up the embankment I drove backwards and made it to the top by the side of the freeway. Got out and checked around. Wheels? OK. Body Damage? Nothing too noticeable. Engine? Looks like the underneath of a lawnmower, but it all looks OK. Belts are still belting! Let's go!!!
Put it in first gear and I hear a wobble from the wheels. Not sure what it is but nothing is gonna stop me from making it to Houston, damnit! My top speed after the accident was about 40MPH.
I reach my parent's house about 5:00 am. Tired, sore and still a bit in shock, I told my parents what happened before I collapsed in my bed.
After I woke up sometime around noon, I went to survey the damage: I had completely stripped two of the four lugs off the right wheel and one lug off the left wheel. I'm damned lucky that one or both wheels didn't fly off the car after my 'accident'.
I also realized that if I had gone off 15 seconds later, my car would probably have been upside-down in the creek.
So, yes. NEVER pass up a chance to sleep during a long road trip."
The Most Haunted Roads in the World
When we think about something being haunted, we think of asylums, homes, prisons and cemeteries. However, there is another place that can be haunted, and there are plenty of examples around the world. It is roads, and some roads have more spirits and ghost stories than most apparent haunted houses. So, what are the haunted roads that you should be aware of in your travels? No matter where you go it seems, on any continent, you are going to come across a road that locals and visitors cite as haunted. Here are just a few.
The M6
According to several surveys, the M6 in England is the most haunted road in the entire land. The road itself has existed in one form or another for roughly 2,000 years and was even used by Roman soldiers during the Roman occupation of England. Not surprisingly, there have been Roman soldiers sighted along the road, walking through traffic, along with a truck driving against the flow of traffic, and a ghostly woman who is very distraught and hitchhiking on the road for eternity. It just gets getting creepy though for those who are on the road, especially at night. Many motorists have reported seeing eyes looking at them from the bushes around Manchester, which is where there was a serious mining disaster many years ago.
Tuen Mun Road
In Hong Kong, you will find the major Tuen Mun Road, which is the most important road on the island and in heavy use. However, it is not just living people who use this road, but the dead as well. There have been many accidents on this road, an immense amount that makes it one of the most dangerous roads in the world. Locals blame the many accidents on the ghosts of the region who will appear out of nowhere in the middle of the road. This will cause the drivers on the road to swerve out of the way, and getting into a serious, sometimes fatal accident. What is making matters worse is that the number of ghosts continues to grow as more and more people die on the road. In many ways, the road is like a zombie virus, killing and adding to its undead ranks and killing more through ghosts appearing out of nowhere in front of drivers.
Stocksbridge By-Pass
Located in England, where we have the M6, we also have the Stocksbridge By-Pass, which is a small road that is the site of many haunting in the area. One story tells of a security guard who was watching the cameras along the roadway and he saw a group of children playing near the road. Not only was this odd because it was late at night, but the clothes the children were wearing dated from many years ago. Going to investigate the situation, the security guard found that the children were gone and there were no traces of anyone being there in the past few days at least. The ground was muddy and there were no footsteps at all in it, which naturally caused the security guard to get a bit freaked out at the situation. It was not just the security guard who experienced this either. Workmen who were staying at the worksite over night could also hear children singing in the night, which itself would be a terrifying experience when you know there are no children around. The appearances do not end there though, another security guard saw a person dressed like a monk standing on the bridge. Thinking the person was going to commit suicide, the police were called but they dismissed the monk sighting as a joke. Eventually the police did go to bridge and found nothing except a very cold temperature in the area, even though the evening was warm and they were in their car. Then, a figure suddenly appeared beside their windows with no head, legs, or arms. The cops tried to get away but their car would not start until the figure disappeared.
Bloodspoint Road
Bloodspoint Road in Boone County, Illinois is a very disturbing and dangerous place to be, but throughout Boone County there are many haunted roads that intersect each other. These roads have been the sites of many disturbing events in the past including murders, suicides, a child that was hit by a train and hangings. One of the worst events was a family that was murdered in the area. In addition, the roads have been the sites of rapes, and children dying on a bus that rolled off a bridge. There was also apparently a witch in the area who hung her children at an old farmhouse. The farmhouse no longer exists, but some drivers have seen it in the field even though later on there is nothing there. With all these horrible events there are many stories these days of seeing children standing on the road, hand marks on cars, strange noises and lights appearing in the trees around the roads.
A229
Going back to England, we have another haunted road. This time it is the A229 going from Kent to Sussex and it is one of the most haunted roads in the country. Many drivers have reported seeing a woman in a white dress appearing in front of their car. When they stop the car, just before hitting her, she will disappear. Most people believe the woman to be Judith Langham, who was killed on the road on her wedding day in 1965. She is not the only ghost here though, including a hitchhiker who can be seen hiking near a well-known pub in the area. When the hitchhiker gets into the car, he will tell you all the things that have gone wrong in the world and how he will make them better, but once you reach a certain spot on the road; he disappears from the seat to start this short journey all over again.
The Ghost Story of Haunted Roads
The story of a haunted road in comes from a resident of the city. He is an Asian, male University sophomore. He told me the story in March at a very late hour. Among friends discussing plans to one day explore some supposedly haunted areas of the state, the storyteller spoke of a “rumor” he had heard from one of his college friends. The “late hour” previously mentioned is noteworthy since it affected the way the urban legend was told. There were four of us in a diner, eating at a time when most restaurants had been closed for hours already. Thus, we were all a bit tired, including the storyteller, who blamed the combination of hunger and the time of day for his lack of presentation skills. For example, he would eat and talk and restate certain parts.
He started by describing that the haunted road was “somewhere in the city, I think it was Marriott Road. Like the hotel, ya know?” He claimed that the road was close by because his friend said so. Later, we looked online and found a nearby street named Marriottsville Road. The storyteller continued by saying that the road is haunted because when you drive there at night, when the sun has completely set, the area seems to be pitch black. Even with headlights, it is supposedly unsafe due to the darkness that shrouds the pavement. He said that the trees there are so tall and the vegetation so thick that they “practically cover the road and form a tunnel around it” to block any light from entering.
Not only is the road a dark one, but there are two more supernatural elements to it. The first is a barn off the side of the road. The storyteller said that noises have been heard from the barn. When people go to investigate the noise, they eventually get close enough to hear whimpering animals. The sounds get louder until, as the storyteller claimed, “They sound more like screaming than whimpering.” At this point, any would-be investigators run away from the site of the barn.
Furthermore, there is an even more terrifying aspect of the road. As already described, it is hard to drive there. The darkness is just part of the difficulty. The road also has many turns and curves along with steep hills. At this point of the story, the teller used lots of hand gestures to help us visualize the severity of the road’s twists. He waved a flat hand like a rollercoaster to show us that driving there would be fun, but in a scary way. However, if one drives too quickly over the seventh hill, a ghost appears. This ghost is actually a monster-truck-like vehicle with extremely bright headlights. The ghost is supposedly that of a victim of a car crash. My friend said, “It was a driver who liked to be reckless, but bit off more than he could chew by racing along the road.” Therefore, he gets jealous of other people speeding and tries to run them off the road.
The urban legend clearly includes many typical elements of scary stories. There is a scary forest, a chilling building, and although the truck is a vehicular paranormal being, it is basically a ghostly figure. I could not find any stories about Marriottsville Road (although oddly enough, there is a “Marriottsville Road 2” off of the main road (“marriottsville road, Ellicott City, MD 21042”)), but there is a more well-known story regarding a road with seven hills. One website states,
“There are seven hills behind Historic Ellicott City, which is said; Supposedly, if you hit the seventh hill at midnight, you will be chased by a demon car that appears out of nowhere. Again this is a myth, and I don't suggest anyone try this! People have lost their lives on this road” (“Historic Ellicott City, MD – Haunted Ellicott City”).
Unfortunately, the above story is not talking about the same road since Marriottsville Road is not that close to Historic Ellicott City. Perhaps the two stories were similar enough to get grouped together. Despite the lack of text regarding Marriottsville Road, when I asked other friends from Ellicott City about a haunted road, they recognized the story. Some say that there is no barn or truck, others say that the truck was driven by two teenage girls, and many purport that it is not a named road that is haunted, but rather an unlabeled road near Marriottsville Road. Even so, they all agree that there is a haunted road north of route 40.
Clearly, the face-value moral of the story is to not be reckless. This rocky road is one that can attract thrill-seekers, but the moral of the story is that if one is careless, then a negative turn of events will occur. In this case, a supernatural automobile ensures one’s doom if he or she decides to have some fun by trying to cheat death. Also, the part of the legend concerning the barn plays upon fears that curiosity is not always a good trait and how one might be punished for it. This is consistent with a theme regarding exploration. There is a facet of the story concerning nosiness and snooping around. In the legend, explorers are penalized for their curiosity by getting scared away.
The summation of so many typical urban legend elements (a dark road, a scary forest, a frightening building, a supernatural being) is also noteworthy. It shows how urban legends can sometimes get more elaborate through word-of-mouth. The story of “Seven Hills Road” is a separate, distinct legend about College Avenue (Lake 180). The addition of the truck suggests that people tend to accept stories surrounding roads as a collective message because they all show society’s fear about driving: getting lost, crashing, losing control, and even aggressive drivers
Trucker Ghost Stories: And Other True Tales of Haunted Highways, Weird Encounters, and Legends of the Road
In a uniquely entertaining book by a rising star, here are uncanny true tales of haunted highways, weird encounters, and legends of the road.
It may have happened to you; it's happened to almost everyone who's ever driven down a highway at night, or in the fog, or snow. Something suddenly appears: a flash of movement, a shadow...what was it? It could be, as the true stories in this book attest, a ghost.
These are true stories from the highways and byways of America. These firsthand accounts are as varied as the storytellers themselves—some are detailed and filled with the terror and suspense that made people feel they had to share what happened to them with others; others are brief and straightforward retellings of truly chilling events.
Here is a chupacabra attack on the desert highway between L.A. and Las Vegas; ghost trains and soldiers; UFOs; the prom girl ghost of Alabama; a demon in Texas, and other accounts of the creepy, scary things that truckers and other drivers and passengers told to editor Annie Wilder.
With so many different stories, Trucker Ghost Stories moves beyond the usual haunted house to offer stories to entice any ghost story reader...and anyone who's ever wondered....
Horror Truck Drivers Urban Legends or True Stories
by Jurica Magoci | on April 11, 2016 | Reading time: 5 min | Drivers
Urban legends are part of our life. Тhey are always linked to unexplained phenomena, mysterious situations.
We have all heard stories about “haunted” houses, ”haunted” roads, vanishing hitchhikers and many others. Truck drivers spend a lot of time on the open road behind the wheel, driving long hours, days and nights.
They are first line witnesses of many weird and incredible situations, but they are still sometimes shocked by the things they see on the highway and they have stories to tell.
The Black Dog
Black dog terminology has many mutations, almost every county has its own variant.
In Greek mythology the black dogs are guardians of the underworld/hell, Cerberus three-headed dog which guards the gates of Hades, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from escaping
In Scotland the black dog is the guardian of treasure buried under a standing stone near Murthley in Perthshire
The Cadejo is a black dog that haunts naughty young men who walk late at night on rural roads
Dip is an evil black hairy dog in Catalan myth, an emissary of the Devil who sucks people’s blood
However, Black dogs often seem to haunt ancient lanes, track ways, crossroads, old churchyards connected with dark agendas like prophecy, revenge or a warning.
Source: www.overdriveonline.com
Everyone on the road has heard the Legend of the Black Dog. Black dog appears when a truck driver starts to fall asleep.
This urban trucking legend was popularized by the Patrick Swayze movie Black Dog.
Some truck drivers said that it is like warning to get off the road and the others that it is an omen of death, sign for fatal accident that ends with the truck driver death or death of innocent people.
When a truck driver has been driving too long and he is tired and fatigued the moment he starts to fall asleep at the wheel the black dog jumps out of nowhere running toward the truck, this ghoul shows itself just before the moment of the crash.
There are different names in different parts of the world.
Bogey Beast (Lancashire)
Bargheust (Yorkshire and the North)
Black Shuck (East Anglia)
Cu Sith (Highlands)
Capelthwaite (Westmorland, Cumbria)
Guytrash Gurt Dog (Somerset)
Gallytrot (Suffolk)
Hairy Jack (Lincolnshire)
Mauthe Doog (Scotland)
Black Shuck (Suffolk)
Pooka (Ireland)
Padfoot (Yorkshire)
Skriker (Yorkshire)
Huay Chivo and Huay Pek (Mexico)
Uay/Way/Waay Chivo/Pek
Cadejo (Central America)
Lobizon (Paraguay and Argentina)
This fairy phantom with fire red eyes mysteriously appears and disappears bringing chaos, fear and death.
Highway 666
This deserted stretch of road originally is the 6th branch of U.S. Route 66. It’s been renamed to U.S. Route 491 because of the Satanic connotation. The road is almost 200 miles long, and runs through Colorado, New Mexico, and ends in Utah.
Source: www.retromasters.com
This road is related to many unexplained accidents and apparition phenomena like, missing road signs, reports of demon dogs, ghostly girl in a long nightgown, flaming phantom truck it’s called The Devil’s Highway.
Flaming truck – many truck drivers have witnessed this unusual event that is associated with the story of a very fast flaming phantom truck where sparks are flying off everywhere.
Satan’s Coach or Satan’s Sedan – Satan’s Speedway or the Devil’s Highway is connected with the large black sedan that shows out of the darkness behind motorists and bump or smash into them, no matter of the driving speed. This Sedan is driven by invisible driver only a shadow figure is hunched over the wheel.
The hounds of hell – this is another strange event where a pack of demon dogs with yellow eyes and sharp teeth are able to run as fast as a vehicle, causing damage to the vehicle as shredding the rubber tires, or crashing through the windows of speeding vehicles tear the passengers to pieces. Believes are that this Black Dogs are joined by Lucifer himself.
A girl in a long nightgown – People see her walking down the road all alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere. If They stop and try to help this pale white girl she instantly vanishes.
Skinwalkers – Shapeshifters supposedly are the spirits of evil medicine men with the ability to magically transform into different types of animals such as crows, coyotes, or wolves.
These spirits are terrorizing the driver with animal appearance in front of the vehicle, gaining for the accident and if this does not work they will appear in the back seat or in the passenger seat of the truck or car to steal the driver or passenger soul.
The Indians in this area believe in the existence of people who have the ability to transform into various animals. These people are called skinwalkers generally used term for this is shapeshifting.
Route 666 was named one of the 20 most dangerous highways in America.
Interesting fact:
Highway statistics show unusually high number of accidents and fatalities on this road when the road was marked with the satanic number 666, in 2003 the government renamed the highway U.S. Route 491 and change all the road signs the number of accidents dropped drastically. Maybe the evil influence vanishes with the new name, what do you think?
Fact review:
This road has poor conditions and it is almost 200 miles long with the monotonous field view that has a hypnotizing effect. Feelings of anxiety, dread, or a sense of impending evil may contribute to additional accidents.
Vanishing Hitchhiker
The vanishing hitchhiker is one of the oldest trucking urban legends. It is the story of a hitchhiker who has died in a terrible accident on this road and returns in ghostly form on the road to find a ride to go home.
Source: www.heroicstories.org
It appears like a figure on the side of the road who is stopping the cars for a ride. The hitchhiker rides for a period of time and then totally vanish from the moving truck.
There is another variation of this story, when the truck driver dropped the hitchhiker to the designated location he noticed that the hitchhiker forget some personal belonging like a sweater or a book.
When the driver will return to the place he dropped the hitchhiker off to give the sweater back, he hears that the owner of that item died a few years ago in an accident. How creepy is this?
Carroll is an independent trucker out of Philadelphia and on the way to drop off the load in East Whiteland Township, he missed a weight limit sign at the corner of 401 and Bear Road where he had to make a right turn and for sudden he gets lost in the Philadelphia suburbs. That’s where the police caught up to him and gave him a $17,751.50 traffic ticket. This is a pretty much true story?
A law prohibiting movement of trucks on certain bridges and roadways that are too heavy because they might be damaged by overweight vehicles. East Whiteland Police Department was just enforcing this law by giving $17,751.50 ticket to the truck driver.
This amount was for $150 for the fine, and $150 for every 500 pounds over the 3,000-pound weight limit.
The truck company will pay significant fees for oversized loads. You have to learn about legal things in your business range to prevent this type of legal penalties.
The Phantom of the Truck Stop
This urban legend is based on true events. Truck driver John William “Pete” drove a tanker truck with 4,600 gallons of gasoline. On the way he sacrificed his life with crashing the tanker into the bridge abutment to avoid a school bus full of kids.
The legend says that this man pick up hitchhikers from that intersection over the years and give them a ride to some rest station.
Source: www.bestride.com
For this event Red Sovine in the song Phantom 309 sings about a hitchhiker who was lifted to a truck stop by the trucker Big Joe, when he informs the people in that diner who give him a ride, waiter tell him the story of the truck driver who died to save school bus full of kids. The waiter also says that he was not the first who experience this, many other hitchhikers were picked up from the Big Joe.
Conclusion
Мost of these stories have an ancient origin, but also have been witnessed too frequently in modern times, there is trace for existing of this creature centuries ago and this story will continue to grow and evolve in the future.
Is it true or is it just a pure folklore and legend? Many folklore stories often have origins in real events. From the point of view, it really does not matter, because as long as there is fear from something unknown, it is real at least in our mind.
Many of the "otherworldly" encounters people experience in Bridgewater Triangle happen on dark, wooded country roads. My very unique first experience of the Bridgewater Triangle happened on the midnight-darkened roads of Bridgewater, Middleboro and Lakeville. I knew nothing about the Bridgewater Triangle at the time.
It was 1989. I was living in Hanson and a new friend from Bridgewater and I went to movies in Brockton. I dropped her off around 11:45 and she gave me directions to the only gas station that was open, as I had just realized I was on empty. After driving for about 25 minutes I knew I was lost. Dreadfully lost. And was about to run out of gas at any second. I had no idea where I was, let alone where the gas station was. It was just one dark street after another. I looked at the gas gauge and now I was below empty. My heart was pounding and fear started seizing me. No payphones in sight. In the middle of nowhere. That is where my car was going to run out of gas.
Twenty-five minutes turned into an hour. And I had never been so scared in my life. Any second, this car was going to stall on one of these pitch black roads. I was running on fumes. The car slowed, but kept going. It was like I was being gently propelled along. I started praying Hail Mary’s to calm me. I must have said five hundred of them.
After one o'clock in the morning, I finally came to a road I recognized. Route, 18. I was in Lakeville, a town which I had never been to, but I had heard of. I started heading north to Whitman, which was about 20 miles away. From Whitman to my house, another seven or so.
I passed several gas stations, but they were all closed. I had no idea how my car was still going after all this time and all these miles. Adrenal rushing though me. Forty minutes later I was on my street, and then my car finally quit. I took my foot of the gas and let the car glide on its own. I rolled into my driveway and the car finally came to a complete stop: in my parking spot.
I
always attributed my little miracle to my prayers. But maybe something else heard my pleas for help that night. When I first learned of the Bridgewater Triangle about five years ago, my unexplainable experience that night in 1989 instantly came to mind. I have never heard of a POSITIVE bizarre experience like mine, but it happened. It happened to me. What happened to me simply defied physics. Something was protecting me and got me home safe that night. I felt it and knew it. But most people's experiences on the dark, wooded roads of the Bridgewater Triangle are anything but positive. Sometimes just "odd", these encounters are often times terrifying.
THE MOST FAMOUS ROAD GHOST OF THEM ALL: THE RED HEADED HITCHHIKER OF ROUTE 44
Experiences with roadside ghosts are a common theme in the Bridgewater Triangle. The most famous of all of these is the Red Headed Hitchhiker of Route 44, made famous by the local legends recorded by Rehoboth historian Charles Turek Robinson in his folklore cult classic, "New England Ghost Files." This menacing spirit is said to haunt the stretch of road of Route 44 at the Rehoboth/Seekonk town line. The ghost is said to have red hair, a beard, wears a red flannel shirt, has a “maniacal” laugh…and really, really likes messing with people.
The first red headed hitchhiker story dates back to 1969 and the legends span to the 1980s. My favorite red headed hitchhiker story happened in 1984. A local couple’s car broke down. The man told his wife to stay in the car while he tried to find a pay phone to call AAA. “I was hoping to find a house with a light on,” the man said.
“Suddenly I saw a man sitting on the side of the road. He was a sloppy looking guy, with red messy hair.” The man asked the stranger if he knew where the closest pay phone was. The stranger did not answer. The man asked him again, and again…and again. And still no answer. He just looked at the man with an odd grin. So the man asks the stranger if he is okay. The man said in Robinson’s book, “Suddenly, the man’s face got very strange. He stopped grinning, he twisted his mouth and I noticed that there was something wrong with his eyes. They were all clouded over--no pupils or anything--and all white.”
The man runs back to towards the car only to hear this crazy laughter behind him. He turns and looks and the guy is gone, but the laughing is still really loud, like he is still behind him. But the story gets weirder. When the guy gets back to his car he finds his wife standing outside of it, scared out of her mind. Apparently she had turned on the car radio while she was sitting there waiting when suddenly a creepy voice cut right through the song that was playing. It started taunting her, calling her by her name…and laughing hysterically.
Maybe the red headed hitchhiker finally caught a lift, because there have been no legitimate sightings since those stories initially laid out by Robinson. But the red headed hitchhiker isn't the only game in ghost town. Phantoms come in all shapes in forms in these stories of some older and some more recent tales of roadside encounters with ghosts. Some of these stories come from websites such as Cellar Walls by Chris Pittman and Ghosts of America. Others come from books such as Christopher Balzano's "Ghost of The Bridgewater Triangle" and Charles Turek Robinson's "New England Ghost Files." Some are first hand accounts. But they all happened on a dark wooded road at night. And I know first hand how terrifying it can be to drive those roads. I can't imagine seeing what these people reported seeing on one of those roads the night I should have run out of gas. I can't imagine their terror and what had to be immense confusion and fear at what they were seeing before their very eyes.
GHOSTLY ROAD RAGE
This story is so spooky, it sounds like an urban legend told to warn young teens not to stay out too late at night. A teenage girl takes a shortcut down a very dark country road late one night on the way home from her boyfriend's house. And is terrorized by a team of road ghosts.
"It happened to me in 1967. I was 16. I was taking a short cut from my boyfriend's house in Easton through East Bridgewater on a very dark wooded road on my way home to Weymouth. It was a Friday night. Just before I turned down the road which only had one street light at the time, there was a car behind me taunting me. They sped around me and went ahead of me. Later I got a creepy thought that they might ambush me in the middle of the wooded road.
I put the creepy thought out of my mind. But as I got to the one street light in the middle of the dark wooded road. There they were... a line of them on the street holding their arms up and intentionally waiting for me, blocking my path. I was horrified that what I had just imagined was actually happening to me. My foot slipped off the clutch and the car began to buck. I screamed a bloodcurdling scream that hurt my ears. Then a moment of self preservation kicked in just before the car stalled, I stepped down on the clutch and drove straight through them...literally. Weird thing is, they did not let go or move out of my way. I clearly drove through them as them they were not there. I really did experience this. It felt so dark and frightening that I buried this experience and didn't tell anyone. I thought people would think I was crazy. Could someone please tell me why this happened? I felt like ghosts were trying to trap me there out in the woods on that dark night... It was horrifying to a young girl at 16.
I don't even know why I didn't tell anyone. Many years later I was dating this guy on the cape who started telling me about a friend of his who was with his girlfriend kissing in their car one night that someone had picked up the car and started shaking the car....I was listening to the story and all of a sudden wreaked and remembered what had happened to me that night long ago.I couldn't believe he was telling me this story. It had happened near the area where I had my horrible experience." www.ghostsofamerica.com.
PRISON DEMON
A mother and daughter are driving in the prison complex when suddenly they see that the road in insurpassable: a pine tree is down in the middle of the road. But as they get closer they see that this is not a fallen tree, but rather a living tree bent from the weight of a black winged creature standing on the top of it, causing the unnatural bending of the pine.
One Saturday afternoon a mother a daughter were driving in the Bridgewater Correctional Complex. What they saw that day will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Out of all the stories of the Bridgewater Triangle, this one has to be up there on the list of the most disturbing and bizarre. The first thing that they noticed as they approached "the thing" was a pine tree completely bent to the ground in the middle of the street. As they neared closer they saw what was causing such an unnatural occurrence. It was a black, man-like being with huge bat-like wings standing on the top of the tree that was now on the street. The mother described it as looking like "a tall man hunched down a bit, in a skintight black suit with large and almost bat type wings. He was standing, but hunched down, on the pine tree, his weight was holding down the top. He saw us and we looked at each other for just a few minutes then he straightened, leaped and flew over the top of the trees on the other side of the road. The pine tree he had been standing on, bounced back up slowly, and rocked back and forth a few times before stopping in its normal standing position. That was all we saw."www.cellarwalls.com
GHOST RIDERS
On more than one occasion, apparitions have been seen riding spectral bicycles on the roads of the Bridgewater Triangle. These next two stories happened on different routes, but both happened in the same general vicinity. One happened on Route 106 in Halifax, the other not far on Route 105 in Middleboro.
Carlston Wood is a paranormal investigator who grew up in Bridgewater. More than once, the ghost of a a a bicycle riding on route 105 in Middleboro has appeared to him. Wood describes the apparition as appearing to be a young teenage girl wearing clothing that looks like they are from the 1950s. She is riding a bike from same era.
Wood has witnessed the apparition three times and all three times his car was the only one on the road at the time. All three times the conditions were the same: very dark and cloudy and in the dead of winter when the temperature is at freezing. "Over the course of many years I have seen girl on the bike three times but I have never stopped the car and ventured outside. Each time she peddles by on the opposite side of the street and looks straight ahead. Looking into the rear view mirrors the girl passes she fades away as quickly as she materializes."
Recently, Wood who is also a musician was in Raynham. After a band set, Wood got to talking with two fans, a local married couple. Somehow the story of the ghostly biker of route 105 came up and the girl turned to her husband, jaw dropped. The couple had seen the ghost before too and were shocked that someone else had witnessed this creepy apparition. "He saw it too!" The wife exclaimed. Last summer, a local couple was traveling down route 106 in Halifax, which joins Route 105 where Carlston Wood had his experiences. The wife was busy texting and wasn't paying attention to the road when suddenly her husband pulled the car over.. She looked over at her husband who looked terrified. She was perplexed as to what had transpired in the last few seconds. At first the husband said nothing. After about thirty seconds he turned to her and told her he just "saw a ghost on a bike." He claimed the ghost and the bicycle were all white. Then drove across the route 106 and simply vanished.
THE MAD TRUCKER OF COPICUT ROAD
The legend is that the ghost of a mad truck driver has terrorized drivers of this dark road at night.
"I recently visited Copicut Woods and my friends and I drove through. There wasn't much that we experienced except the whole time, I had a strange, uneasy feeling. When we reached the end of the dirt road, we noticed that there were these bright blue headlights behind us. It looked as though they were coming from a huge truck. My friend mentioned how it looked like a Mack truck or something because it seemed so big. He said that it looked like it had orange lights on the top of it, which I didn't see. What was funny and creepy about the whole thing was that it wasn't behind us the whole time and as soon as it was behind us, it pretty much vanished. There wasn't a place for a car to pull over unless it pulled into a driveway at the end of the forest. The really weird thing was that we couldn't find our way to the road to get home, so when we turned around to go back through the path, we didn't see any large vehicle anywhere...in a driveway or anywhere in the woods. I researched about the woods and the mysterious lights the next day, which led me to this site. I was curious to know if anyone had any similar experiences or knew anything about it because it scared me."www.cellarwalls.com
The Phantom of Route 40
The Phantom of Route 40 “The Triumph of Death” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) – Museo del Prado. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons –
The news that a joker in Kentucky has rigged his jeep to look like a skeleton is driving it called to mind the early 1950s Ohio road panic of “The Phantom of Route 40.”
This skeletal driver was first seen in December of 1951 by a trucker named Roy Fitzwater.
The ‘Phantom of Route 40’ Roars Down the Highway
Vandalia, Ohio. The “Phantom of Route 40” is roaring down the national highway these nights—maybe along a stretch you’ve travelled on.
Listen to Roy Fitzwater, 30, a Greenville, Pa., trucker.
“It was spitting snow and freezing rain, and very dark one night three weeks ago. I dimmed my lights when a car approached.
“When the car got about 200 feet from me, its light went out entirely. Then a little light flicked on inside and I saw this thing. It was horrible looking. It scared me. I jammed down my throttle and got out of there fast.”
Five tales of the ghostly traveller have reached the State Highway Patrol here. Some truckers said the “phantom’s” car glows. Occasionally the “phantom” gets out and reveals a Halloween mask, and a skeleton suit, with bones outlined in luminous paint.
Three truckers almost caught the macabre motorist a week ago. But he zoomed away, scraping his car against one of the trucks.
Maybe he’s mentally ill, said a patrol officer—or maybe he’s just got a weird sense of humor.
But keep a keen eye, if you’re going Route 40 in the dead of night—in Western Ohio. The Times [San Mateo, CA] 1 January 1952
The stretch of road where the Phantom first appeared is a narrow, two-lane road atop an earthen dam. The road slopes away almost vertically. If a truck ever swerved through the railings as a skeletal driver played “chicken,” it would be a long way down. At one end of the dam was a roadhouse where many truckers gathered and told of their run-ins with the Phantom.
Truckers Tell of Phantom
Dayton, O., March 7. A phantom skeleton is stalking truckers along the western Ohio stretches of U.S. route 40.
Truckers report actually seeing a masked motorist who wears a skeleton suit that glows in the dark.
For some time they have been keeping their experiences to themselves, not wanting to draw a horse laugh from police. But they soon found more than one driver wasn’t seeing things after conversations in roadside eating spots.
The phantom, according to the stories, likes to show up on the highway on stormy nights. He has been at it since before Christmas, and almost was caught once when three truckers closed in at the route 40 span over the Stillwater river.
The phantom’s favorite trick is to approach a rolling truck from the opposite direction, dim his lights normally, then put them out completely.
All lights go out about 150 to 200 feet from the surprised truck driver, who then sees a dim light come on inside the car. The sight of the phantom driver is described as “horrible looking.” Oregonian [Portland, OR] 8 March 1952: p. 6
Apparently not satisfied with the attention he was getting, the Phantom drove his high-tech vehicle east to Springfield.
Route 40 ‘Ghost’ Dares Sheriff to Catch Him.
Springfield, O., March 14. The Phantom of Highway 40 took off his driving gloves today and picked up a pen. He wrote a letter to Sheriff J. Arthur Shuman of Clark County.
He said he had a car that could travel 135 miles an hour. He added that this speedy machine was loaded with “radar and sonar and some other equipment I don’t even know the name of.”
The “phantom” is not one of those old fashioned ghosts that go around scaring people with just ordinary masks and glowing lights. Not the phantom of Route 40. He has gone modern. He intends to have his car “equipped with an automobile television screen so I can spot a patrol car three miles away,” the phantom wrote to Sheriff Shuman.
The “phantom is the character that has been scaring truck drivers at night. Truckers reported seeing a “phantom car that glows.”
Occasionally trucks reported the skeleton character gets out and shows a mask and a skeleton suit, with bones outlined in luminous paint.
Evidently the “phantom” is feeling cocky. He dared the sheriff to catch him.
The sheriff today reported receiving the letter from the elusive and macabre motorist, dated Springfield, O., March 10.
The “Phantom” said he was even willing to have a midnight meeting with the sheriff.
But “don’t form a road block,” the letter read. “The game must be a chase, not a block.”
Said Sheriff Shuman: “No comment.” Plain Dealer [Cleveland, OH] 15 March 1952: p. 1
Not satisfied with luminous paint, radar, sonar and TV screens, the Phantom next experimented with smoke.
Route 40 Spook Puts Out Screen of Green Smoke
St. Mary’s O. The “Phantom of Route 40,” a hard-driving spook who enjoys scaring truck drivers, popped up again today—this time behind a green smoke screen.
Rex and Tom Weaver, brothers of St. Mary’s, said they’ve seen all they want of the garishly-clad ghost who appears like a will o’ the wisp on western Ohio roads.
The Weavers reported they were driving on Route 40 near McCartyville when a car passed, then suddenly stopped in front of them.
“We skidded to a stop and ran up to cuss out the crazy fool who was driving the car,” Rex said.
“When we got there, the darn thing actually began to fill up with green smoke.”
He said there was a man inside the car with “a wild-looking striped suit on.”
“He began laughing like a maniac,” Rex added, “Then roared away in his car.” Repository [Canton, OH] 20 March 1952: p. 31
Either the police were getting too close or the Phantom was bored with cruising the same old roads. He moved on to pastures new, along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
Ohio Road Spook Calling His Shots
Lisbon, O., Apparently the phantom now has developed a voice and is calling his shots.
Miss Nancy Neill, switchboard operator at the Columbiana county courthouse, reported this telephone conversation today:
She plugged in a line and a male voice said, “This is the phantom… Route 7 tonight.”
That was all. The caller hung up.
Sheriff’s deputies were alerted.
Yesterday four motorists at nearby Wellsville saw a skeleton-like figure in an automobile. One man told highway patrolmen the phantom appeared to be standing on the running board.
Previous the phantom was seen in other parts of the state, scaring truckers and perplexing police.
Route 7 runs along the Ohio River from here to East Liverpool and then turns inland to Youngstown. Journal Star [Peoria, IL] 28 March 1952: p. 1
And with new territory came a bold new dancing act.
Car Ghost Performs on Another Highway, Ohio Driver Reports
Steubenville, Ohio. The ghostly skeleton who danced on Route 40 may have moved to Route 7.
A nervous truck driver, Louis Martel of Pawtucket, Rhode Island stopped in Yorkville, Ohio, Wednesday night to tell his story to Police Chief Roger Lollini.
Martel was driving north on Route 7, which follows the Ohio River. Near a small airport, he saw an automobile approaching. It veered toward him and its lights went out.
Then a figure jumped from the car. Glowing in the lights of the truck was a skeleton, topped by some sort of mask in the shape of a skull and crossbones.
The skeleton danced.
Martel departed… Morning Olympian [Olympia, WA] 13 March 1952: p. 1
Road phantoms who want to roll them bones are not new, although their vehicles change with the times. Pieter Brueghel the Elder painted skeleton wagon drivers in The Triumph of Death, c. 1562. In 1892, as I reported in The Ghost Wore Black, a “skeleton with burning eyes” driving an emigrant wagon, stampeded the residents of Richmond, Texas.
There was also this bizarre story from (cue the Name Game) Devil’s Bend near Pittsburgh, PA.
SKELETON IN AUTO RE-ENACT TRAGEDY
Phantom Smash-Up Seen at Midnight on Dangerous Devil’s Bend
Pittsburg, July 13. On Devil’s Bend, a famous curve of a favorite automobile road, near this city, the scene of a dozen or more fatalities, there appeared at midnight, it is said, a phantom auto, with two animated skeletons as occupants. The siren gave out piercing toots, dry bones rattled with the levers, and brakes were jammed hard.
The mysterious auto was seen by a party of politicians who were returning from a caucus at a nearby school. They heard the report of a car coming along at a terrific rate of speed and huddled in fear, in the middle of the road for an instant. The chug-chug of the engine grew louder and the headlights suddenly rounded a curve and illuminated the pathway. Under giant trees the auto lamps made a peculiar white light.
This caused the pedestrians to scatter. As they did so, all noticed that the skeleton form at the wheel released his grip for a moment, put a cigarette in his lips and lit a match. As the match was applied to the cigarette the auto was seen to skid on the fatal curve, and crash against the oak trees, which creaked and groaned. Then there was a flash and all was quiet.
The party regathered and then decided to hurry to the nearest farm house, that of Samuel Werdle. He was quickly aroused and he and his son Jed, with lanterns, accompanied the men back to the scene of what was thought to be another fatal accident. Nothing was found at the scene of the smash. Still unconvinced that they had seen only a phantom auto, one of the investigators returned to the Werdle residence, where he telephoned to the county morgue, but was told that no fatalities had been reported from Devil’s Bend. Trenton [NJ] Evening Times 13 July 1911: p. 4
Seen by a “party of politicians” returning from a “caucus?” Oh, to be a fly on the wall as the politicians explained to their wives why they were so late…. Yet, Devil’s Bend did have a reputation. Here is an article on one incident. Another accident killed 6 men and 20 horses.
FOUR MEN KILLED IN A WRECK
Score of Others Injured in Accident Near Pittsburg.
Pittsburg, Dec. 6. Four men were killed and a score injured, a number of them seriously, Wednesday morning in a wreck of two freight and an express train on the Pennsylvania railroad at Devil’s Bend one-half mile east of Manor, Pa. Saginaw [MI] News 6 December 1911: p. 6
As in most phantom panics, the Phantom of Route 40 (to my knowledge) was never caught or identified. This Ohio state psychiatrist had some dire, psycho-babble warnings about a 1952 Cincinnati apparition who wore a hood stamped “The End” (Another post, another day) and “The Phantom.”
‘Phantom’ and ‘The End’ Termed Menace to Society
Columbus, Ohio. Ohio’s “Phantom of Route 40” and the garishly-clad, hooded apparition who believes in prophecy and calls himself “The End,” are crackpots and a menace to society, a state psychiatrist said recently.
The psychiatrist, one of the top officials in Ohio’s mental health division who asked that he remain unidentified, said the weirdly-garbed characters who have been scaring the daylights out of unsuspecting motorists are mentally sick.
“’The End’ is definitely psychotic,” he declared after reading a newspaper account of the weirdly-dressed man who appears suddenly from behind bushes in rural areas near Cincinnati with the words “The End” stamped on the hood masking his face.
“This kind of behavior is diagnostic as that of a sick mind,” the psychiatrist added. “’The End’ needs treatment badly and should be hospitalized..” The state mental health expert explained the odd behavior of “The End” this way.
“The writing is symbolic,” he said—“Symbolic of a mission.” He said the hooded apparition obviously has a Messianic complex.
“Such people,” the psychiatrist explained, “commonly take it upon themselves to warn others of what they think are impending cataclysmic events. These include the end of the world, the return of God and the crashing together of planets.”
The psychiatrist said it would probably be just a matter of time until “The End’ winds up in one of the state’s mental institutions. “If his home situation is such that he can’t be treated there,” he said, “putting ‘The End’ in a hospital would be doing the man, his family and society a favor.”
The mental health expert said that while “The Phantom of Route 40” probably needs attention too, “he may not be as acutely ill mentally.”
The “Phantom of 40” is another of several masked men who have been popping up like will-o’-the-wisps on state highways to harass motorists. This particular “spook” has been reported seen wearing a skeleton suite that glows in the dark like his luminously painted car.
One terrified motorist told police “the thing” vanished in a cloud of green smoke, and police agree that the elusive phenomena always makes a fast getaway when his capture seems near.
The psychiatrist said this green ghost shows a form of neurosis in his antics which proclaim him to be an exhibitionist, and added, “they reflect a psycho-sexual maladjustment.”
He explained that “it is a means of accomplishing an ego-satisfaction which can’t be accomplished through normal associations.” Advocate [Baton Rouge, LA] 25 April 1952: p. 34
The early 1950s was a busy time for exhibitionist “phantoms.” 1952 also saw reports of a phantom dynamiter in Dallas, Texas and the “Blue Phantom” gunman of Illinois. Beginning in 1951, a phantom gunman terrorized Los Angeles, while the Phantom Killer of the Pennsylvania Turnpike struck in 1953.
The mention above of “masked men appearing like will-o’-the-wisps,” is tantalizing, but inconclusive. I’ve not found any other masked road phantoms except “The End.” Two cases do not “several” make. The trigger-happy Illinois Blue Phantom seems to be the Route 40 Phantom’s closest rival in terms of media coverage.
Other masked road phantoms causing panic 1951-1953? Accomplish your ego-satisfaction by letting me know at Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com.
As a completely irrelevant aside, was this 1980 CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode: “The Ghost Driver,” starring Mason Adams and Norman Rose, inspired by the Phantom? Here’s the blurb: “What appears to be a skeleton driving a car forces four people to crash and die, leaving one skeptic to confront the ghost before he can kill again.” You can listen to it here. And here are the lyrics to a song about the Phantom, by Jim Colegrove. Thanks to Martha Hardcastle Guthrie for her help with this story.
Truckers log thousands of hours behind the wheel and encounter everything from bad weather and treacherous conditions to careless drivers and fatal accidents. However, sometimes even truckers are shocked by what they see on the road. Here are five true ghost stories from real truckers.
The Guardian Angel
“In the late 80’s, Michigan had I-94 west of Detroit all torn up as they were completely replacing the roadbed.
I was going into Detroit about 2 a.m., driving in the construction zone, when I saw this heavy-set elderly lady in a rain coat standing behind her car in the construction zone waving her arms for me to stop. I had almost passed the elderly lady when I saw her and couldn’t stop. So I turned around at the next exit and circled back and pulled up behind the broken down car with my four-ways on.
Two heads popped up from behind the seats and a young guy came back to the truck. I told him to get everyone out of the car and I would take them to a gas station where they could get some help. He got his wife from the car and they got into my truck and shut the passenger door.
I looked at them and said, ‘Is that everybody? Where is the elderly lady?’ The couple looked puzzled and asked what I was talking about. So I told them the story of the elderly lady flagging me done and described her to the couple.
Immediately the woman burst into tears and said that she had heard that guardian angels look like deceased relatives. She went on to explain that her grandmother had passed away earlier that year and I had just described her grandmother to a ‘T.’
This story still gives me goose bumps thinking about it all these years later.
I can’t wait to meet that elderly lady someday. I did something right that night, for once in my life.”
“It was about 3 a.m., and I was west bound on Jensen Road in Fresno, CA, just before the residential area. I had slowed to about 40 mph when out of nowhere appeared this freakishly tall figure of a man in a black, buttoned up trench coat and a round, black sombrero standing on the white line of the two lane road. He must have been at least 6’7″ or 7’0 tall. My partner and I watched and he didn’t even flinch as the rig passed by. I swear, the side mirrors must have missed his head by only a couple of inches. My partner and I looked at each other with our eyes wide open and screamed ‘Did you see that?! What the fuck was that?’. I swear our skin crawled and we were both in a kind of shock. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple days.”
“Last week, I had just left Gallup, NM and was driving west on I-40 near Holbrook, AZ when I heard a KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, two times, on the side of my sleeper. It was very loud and distinct…like ONE, TWO, THREE, and then it repeated once more shorty after that. I had the radio off and was alone in the rig. Honestly, I thought ‘KEEP DRIVING!’ was the best thing to do. When I got to Holbrook, I stopped for a break but was too freaked to get out and go look. The next day, I walked around the cab and was looking at the cat walk.
There is no way a human being could have been hiding back there, at 3 a.m., in 10 degree freezing winter weather, going 70 mph, without anyone noticing.
“I was driving to work around 3:30 in the morning on a back road in Mississippi near the Louisiana line. I was probably going about 35 or so, as it was raining and the road is a winding with no lines or anything. It’s dangerous enough in daylight under normal conditions. Anyway, I’m driving along and suddenly this jet black horse just flies out of the woods on a side trail. There was a rider decked out in a black cloak with a hood and everything. The horse must have been blasting at full speed, and the rider’s cloak was just whipping in the wind. They must’ve ran for 1/4 mile or so and then darted off down another side trail and disappeared into the darkness. A buddy was riding with me and I looked over at him, and he looked over at me, and we both said something along the lines of ‘Did you fucking see that?!’.”
“I was driving at night when I heard an odd grinding noise, like I had run over something that got stuck. It was about 2 a.m., so I pulled into well-lit rest stop and woke up my buddy. I explained it to him, and as we got out of the car, we heard what sounded like a kid crying. There were no other cars at the rest stop, but we frequently heard stories about child trafficking and kidnapping, so we decided to check it out. We grabbed our flashlights and headed towards the noise, which was coming from the bathrooms.
As we get closer, we realized it was coming from the women’s bathroom. It was a low, dull sobbing. We prepared for the worst and walked in expecting to see a brutally beaten or raped 8 year old or something, but there was nobody inside. The sound was still there, it was still clearly coming from the room, but the room was empty. We turned on the lights but still found nothing. We checked each stall, the trash can. Nothing. We even started looking for WHERE in the room it was coming from – nothing. We wondered, is it a hidden speaker? Are we on candid camera? What the fuck?
My buddy climbed up one of the stalls to get to the top window in the rest stop which was vented out and open. He closed it, and the noise stopped. Completely. He opened it, and there was no more noise. We sat there for a few seconds, staring at each other. He shrugged. Then the window slammed shut again without him touching it.
We were out of that fucking bathroom in seconds. The noise started up about 10 seconds later, and we tore out of the parking lot. The grinding noise was still there. So this time I pulled over a few miles later at a Flying J Truck Stop, one that was well-lit and occupied. We checked and saw a red and silver piece of metal wedged underneath. We couldn’t remove it by hand as it was really wedged in there, so we kicked at the metal to bend it and figure we’d remove it when we got back.
A week later, I had my mechanic take it out when he was doing a service – it was part of a kid’s tricycle, the red area where somebody can stand. That was one of those moments for me. Totally fucked up and crazy.
Kelly Road
Ohioville, Pennsylvania
A one-mile section of Kelly Road, Ohioville, Pennsylvania is an area that has had numerous reports of paranormal activity and bizarre happenings. Reports say that when animals have entered this haunted stretch of road they suddenly turn from peaceful and quiet to violent (think Cujo), chasing after other animals and even people. The road is surrounded by dark, thick and creepy forest where white apparitions and noises that can’t be explained have been seen and heard. No one is quite sure why this short section of road is haunted but theories suggest that is could be somehow connected to cult activity that was once taking place in the area and curses that have been put on the land for some reason.
A75 Kinmont Straight
South West Scotland
For over fifty years this road has been the scene of numerous hauntings. Reports of paranormal activity have been frequent enough that the road has been nicknamed ‘the Ghost Road’ It is thought to be Scotland’s most haunted road and has received hundreds of reports of unexplained sightings. In 1957 a truck driver saw a couple walk in front of his truck and he thought he hit them. When the driver stopped to investigate the couple were nowhere to be seen. This is something of a typical “ghost story” scenario, but that is what Halloween is all about after all!
Dead Man’s Curve
Clermont County, Ohio
Dead man’s curve is a dangerous turning intersection in Clermont County–according to the most common reports, at the place where 222 meets State Route 125. The road was part of the Ohio Turnpike built in 1831, and it has a long list of victims. On October 19, 1969, five teenagers died there when their 1968 Impala was hit at more than a hundred miles an hour by a 1969 Roadrunner. There was only one survivor: a guy named Rick. Ever since that day, the intersection has been haunted by “the faceless hitchhiker,” whom Rick has seen five times. It is described as the pitch-black silhouette of a man, a “three-dimensional silhouette.”
According to Haunted Ohio III, Rick’s friend Todd said “Rick and I were heading home from Bethel to Amelia. I noticed a man’s shape on the side of the road. It turned like it was hitchhiking, with an arm sticking up. The thing wore light-colored pants, a blue shirt, long hair and a blank, flat surface where the face should have been. We looked back. There was nobody there. I’ve also seen the black shadow figure, walking its slow, labored, dragging walk by the side of the road.”
Due to rerouting, the actual location of Dead Man’s Curve is somewhat in doubt. They say it is at 222 and SR 125, near Bantam Road. As you head east on 125, 222 turns right towards Felicity and Bantam Road turns left toward East Fork Lake State Park. The spot is just below a carryout.
