Ghostly Hitchhikers
December 16th, 2009 by John WolfeIn continuing with entries pertaining to urban legends, today’s post features three videos recounting tales of ghostly hitchhikers. Similar to La Llorona, there does appear to be legitimacy to certain parts of the legend, based on eyewitness accounts.
This first video focuses on the overall legend of ghost hitchhikers:
Source: YT user, twothumbsupdvd
This next piece features a man’s personal experience with a ghostly passenger:
Source: YT user, tombstoner79
This last vid contains personal and second-hand experiences with a faceless roadside phantom:
Source: YT user, shane8109
In closing this post, I’d like to relate a true story that I’ve only shared with a couple of people:
Roughly twelve years ago, I had an early morning encounter of my own with what appeared to be two phantom-like pedestrians. I had just finished working the graveyard shift and was headed home between 3 and 4 AM. The particular stretch of road I was traveling ran right through a sleepy village whose origins date back to the 1600′s.
As I approached an area where the road straightened out for a good distance, I noticed nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. The moon was full and my headlights were illuminating my path extremely well.
After a few seconds, I saw what appeared to be two objects up ahead and to the right, in a location where there had been nothing just moments before. Always on the lookout for something spooky, this struck me as odd and since, at this ungodly hour, there were no other motorists out, I slowed down well below the 35 mph speed limit.
Drawing closer, I could see the objects were two “people” standing a few feet from the edge of the road. They weren’t hitchhiking, they were simply standing there, up to their knees in weeds, facing towards my oncoming headlights.
As I slowly drove past their location, I could see no discernible facial features whatsoever on either one of them. That fact, in and of itself, was enough to freak me out, but after passing them up, I immediately looked in the rear-view mirror and despite the moonlight, neither one was visible! It seemed both had vanished.
Unfortunately, I have no way to prove what I saw, so my experience joins the annals of the ghostly hitchhiker legend. Since I never saw them again; there were no other witnesses and I had no proof to verify who or what they were, I’ve always been tight-lipped about sharing this particular experience, but after watching the faceless ghost vid, I was inspired to put it in writing.
An interesting sidenote to this story:
The location where I spotted these two strange individuals is roughly two or three miles from a cemetery. This is the same cemetery where my mom and I encountered what we believe to be the ghost of a woman (walking twenty feet in front of us) wandering around the headstones.
I discussed our June ’09 cemetery encounter in previous posts and on my Halloween Webcam back in October, but I’ll probably do a full blog entry with all the details in a future article.
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December 17th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Shivers–cool vid’s! I love the ghostly hitchhiker theme. It’s a classic. If I had your encounter I know there’s a few things I’d probably want to do. I’d first go and check archives using the location and accident and deaths and see if I can find anyone killed on that route. If you noticed the era of their clothing, that would help too. My guess is you saw an imprinted image of two people who at some point were standing there. That is so wicked–with all that ability to see detail–no facial features. Creep-o-rama. I’ve had something exactly like that happen in a cemetery. I thought it was another mourner, standing up after leaning over a grave and I saw his outfit and noted he was elderly, but when I pulled my backpack up over my shoulder agian and looked…he was gone. No where to go either. It was the center of the cemetery. Took me maybe 4 seconds to look away and – zap! Shivers….
December 17th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
First off John, to you I send much of my gratitude for sharing such a personal story with us all. Out of everyone I’ve ever known personally, you are by far the only human who has had such an array of paranormal experiences, next to your Mom of course
She’s had quite a few too! I always get a little excited when I see you’ve typed out quite a bit in the blog because I DO love your writing and miss it greatly from WindoftheSoul!!!
Secondly, ah ghost stories, gotta love ‘em. You know, it’s so difficult to capture their image on video or camera that it really does come down to the actual personal experience that person had with their encounter that makes it real. Such a thing has exsisted through out all of time I’m sure. Now that I think about it, chances are many of us who have had a ghostly encounter of some sort wish that we DID have it on tape some how. It seems as though the energies of the universe don’t quite work that way to allow that to happen. Though we can capture things being said so at least it’s something.
The same holds true for people who have encountered a UFO experience or have had highly unusual happenings to their body or their surroundings that cannot be explained. I’ve had a few very strange experiences in which I wish I did have a camera rolling to capture the happenings. But who was to know prior to the event that something was going to happen in the first place. The paranormal world does have the element of surprise on their side, that’s for sure.
In short, it really does come down to you, and us as individual people having our own unique encounter with the paranormal that’s so believable. Perhaps that’s why there will always be skeptics in our world, it’s something that will never be filmed. Just like the Creator, Source, God, Buddha, Allah whichever faith is practiced; believers KNOW there is such a thing but it’s something that can never be proved to the human eyes. Ahhhhh, gotta love this 3rd dimensional human experience, after all….we did sign up for it
December 17th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
P.S. – PLEASE DO write out in great detail of your own ghostly experiences, especially the one at the cemetery. When it comes to you and a long blog entry, I know it’s going to be a kick ass read
I hope you have the time to do that soon my friend.
December 17th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
autumnforest,
Thanks for the great suggestions, I hadn’t ever thought of doing that. You’re probably right about them being some type of imprint.
Your cemetery experience sounds a lot like ours. The details are quite similar. Thanks to your comment and Goldie’s, I’m fired up to write it out in full detail. I think I’ll get on that in the next day or so.
Goldie,
Though I’m very open, you know I’m also wary of calling certain things paranormal. I like to consider other explanations first, before assuming something is caused by a ghost. Being that I do have a “skeptical” side about paranormal events, I’d have to agree with you — I’ve probably had more strange stuff happen to me than a lot of other skeptics out there. Oh yeah, my mom has experienced several things that I’ve never even encountered, so it does tend to run in the family.
There is an immense void in tangible evidence, when we consider how many amazing experiences have occurred to people and compare it to what’s actually been caught on film or video. Just as you said, the paranormal seems to happen the most often when we are least expecting it (especially visual encounters), and therein lies the problem: when we aren’t looking for it, we don’t have equipment to document it.
I really believe certain “things” have to be lined up just right for those hidden factors (e.g. spirits, ghosts, UFO’s, etc.) to reveal themselves, whether they’re stemming from another plane of existence or else just imprints in the ether of our own plane. This need for things to line up just right is what makes it all so tricky to document.
I’m glad you liked this entry and I definitely will get to working on a full written version of the encounter we had with the lady ghost.
December 17th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Back again. I’m going down my list of blogs I follow. My holiday gift is to tell them what I love about their blogs.
Wow–where do I begin? You’re the king of Halloween–truly you’ve earned the title. I have hope for America when I find out there’s folks like you out there keeping Halloween a memory that every kid in the neighborhood remembers, grows up, and wants to reenact in his own yard. You’re spreading a holiday disease–Hee hee. There’s no cure, you know. You have to give in to the pumpkin. I love that you find the most interesting and obscure vid’s, spooky tidbits, nostalgic fun, and I just love when you share your buildup for Halloween. All in all, I never know what you’ll do next and you keep me coming back. When I see you have a new post up-I’m there in a second! Thanks so much and keep it up!
December 19th, 2009 at 12:53 am
autumnforest,
Truly, that means so much to me! I can’t thank you enough. I sincerely appreciate your kind words. To know that Season of Shadows has that type of impact on someone is phenomenal. With the support of awesome visitors like yourself, what I get to do at this site tastes that much sweeter to me. You rock! Thank you so very much.