Phantom Travelers

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Phantom Traveler
Seen in Episode 1X04

Ever drive down a dark road at night and feel like you are not alone? There could be a reason for this; you could have picked up a spirit hitchhiker or phantom traveler along the way.

These spirit travelers are ghosts of human and even animals that haunt the many roads in the world today. There have been reported sightings of these entities in vehicles or places of transportation such as train stations, airports and way stations along the way. They appear to haunt specific locations and types of transportation due to a tragedy associated with them.

There have been many reports of these travelers that date from the 1600s in Europe and Russia to the present. All these reports have one thing in common these phantom travelers appear from nowhere and can just as suddenly disappear.

In New England there is a report of a man, a young girl and a coach seen traveling the roads between Connecticut and Boston. Many travelers from the early 1800s to the present have witness this apparition, all report seeing the same man and daughter and coach that seemed chased by clouds.

Few people have reported that the coach and passengers do occasionally stop to ask directions to Boston and all report that the man drives the coach off in the opposite direction from where he is told to head. There is a record of a man and his daughter starting out for Boston and not heeding a warning about an approaching storm, the two were never seen again.

There are many reports of ghosts on trains in the world, from the mysterious woman in black who cradles her husbands decapitated head in her lap on a British train, to a spectral hobo that rides the rails in Southern Georgia and many more stories all have the same thing in common all have met with some mishap while on a train and seem to be forever doomed to travel the same route.

There are reports of travelers that haunt airports and airplanes too. In London’s Heathrow airport there is a report of a ghost that haunts a run way there. The story is that this person died on this runway in the late 1940s. The plane crash killed all 22 people on board. Almost immediately after the crash rescue workers reported seeing this man dressed in a dark suit and bowler hat, where he walked up to them and asked them if they had found his briefcase. He has been reported quite a lot especially on foggy London nights.

Another apparition around the airport haunts the VIP lounges this is a different ghost and not much is known about this visitor that wears a light gray suit.

Not all phantom travelers have the luxury of riding either planes or trains; many of these visitors have to result to hitch hiking to make their way from one point to another. Most of the reported phantom hitchhiker stories have to do with a woman or young girl ghost that is most often seen by male drivers. These sightings seem to be of a damsel in distress, it is late at night, a remote stretch of the road, they usually appear in the headlights of the approaching car, dressed in white and most often are wet even if it’s not raining or there is no body of water around.

The same story permeates through out, the driver stops asks if she needs a ride, he notices she is cold and wet and offers her his jacket, she gets in the back, tells him where she is going, sometimes telling him her name. He takes her to the address looking occasionally in his rear view mirror to see how beautiful she is.

Upon reaching at the address she gave him he turns and notices she is gone, his jacket is on the seat where she was sitting, the seat is damp as is the jacket. Depending on the story she may leave something behind a scarf or a book.

The startled driver goes to the door of the address, usually a woman or man answers the door, tells him that this usually happens and it’s usually around the anniversary of their daughter’s death.

She was murdered or died in an accident near the location of where he picked her up. They eventually show him a picture of the girl to make him believe. One last thing if the phantom hitchhiker disappears wearing the driver’s jacket upon visiting the ghost grave he finds his jacket draped over the headstone.

One of the most famous phantom hitchhikers is that of Resurrection Mary who haunts a suburb of Chicago. It is believed that Mary was killed in a car accident around 1934 after she was dancing at the O. Henry Ballroom; there are reports of her spirit appearing around 1939.

The tales tell of the spirit of Mary asking to be taken to the Ballroom where she dances all night long. At closing time she asks to be taken to Archer Road back towards the Resurrection Cemetery. As the car nears or passes the cemetery Mary disappears, during the renovation of the cemetery in the 1970s there were a lot of reports of Mary, some passersby would see her standing inside the large iron gates and thinking someone was locked inside would call for help in getting her out, but no matter how much they checked there would be no one in side the cemetery late at night.

There is another tale of a phantom traveler on a bus in Chicago, a young girl boarded a bus that was headed for downtown, at the end of the route the driver approached the young girl to ask for payment, she disappeared right before his eyes.

Just remember the warning that your parents gave you never to pick up hitchhikers, well it may not be an ax murderer you pick up, it may just be a phantom hitchhiker.

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