Another Strange Story

This might change on Sunday, when hopefully Animal Planet will have a real scary story on The Haunted. Sunday is Halloween. While I haven't had an official theme this year like I did last year, I have been occasionally bringing up ghost stories that I have either not thought of in years, or I talk about ones I have seen on TV. This one was inspired by an article. And unlike last year, I haven't seen Kenny trolling around. And really, I've been trying to be good this year and not clutter up this blog with stories about trolls. Honestly, I haven't seen Kenny since that last episode. Oh well! Not that he is missed. hehe!

Well anyway, this story was inspired by an article I saw yesterday. There is a phenomenon called "phantom hitch-hikers" and it is more of an urban legend than a true ghost story. Though there are some connections with ghosts, like the story of Resurrection Mary. We all know about her! It is the restless spirit of a young teenage woman who was killed in an accident in 1930, and today wanders the highway in front of Resurrection Cemetary in Chicago, looking for someone to give her a ride home. Home usually winds up being back in the cemetary. Well, that's one story. But there have been some much more dramatic stories of phantom hitch hikers. They have actually been reported for centuries, and told in many variations in many parts of the world. The stories almost always are basically the same though. Like a hitch hiker is picked up, and disappears while the car is moving. No talking is usually involved, and it's like the person is there one minute and gone the next.

The only time talking has ever been involved is if the hitch-hiker is some kind of a prophet. Then they foretell some kind of disaster. One of the most interesting in my point of view, was about an old woman who was seen along interstate 5, who told of the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. She apparently accurately predicted the eruption and said that it was a warning from GOD for the PNW. Just before she would disappear from the speeding car, she would say those who did not return to the fold could expect to perish volcanically in the very near future. Then she was gone. I never saw this hitch-hiker, I kinda wish I had though. She would have been interesting to see!

But there are some stories of these phantom hitch-hikers that do not involve ghosts or spirits. In Hawaii, the goddess Pele is so important to the people, she created the islands by ruling the volcanos. But she has often  been seen on the highway too in the form of a beautiful, young native woman. It is believed that if you see her, and you pick her up, good things will happen to you. But if you see her and you don't pick her up, disaster will come to you. In Arab countries, people who drive semi-trucks sometimes pick up hitch-hikers to keep them awake at the wheel. Well, there have been reports of these truckers picking up jinis (or jeanies), which take the form of beautiful young women on the side of the highway. They usually only appear to men. The women get into the truck and make conversation. At some point during the ride, the driver will look over to her only to discover that to his horror, the woman has the legs of a goat! When he discovers this, the woman usually laughs hysterically and then disappears. How would you feel if you saw something like that?? LOL!

I remember a long time ago when Arthur C. Clark's Mysterious World used to come on, I heard a story of a taxi driver who was riding along a dirt road in open country one dark night. Up the road his headlights spotted a man, who was dressed in tattered farmer duds, and the driver said his face looked normal, except that it was white as a sheet. He stopped and asked the mysterious man if he wanted a lift anywhere. The man never spoke, but got into the car and sat in the passenger's seat. The driver asked the man where he wanted to go, and the man just pointed foreward up the road. The driver tried to engage in conversation, but the mysterious man would not say a word at all. As the driver was coming to a fork in the road, he turned to ask the man which way he wanted to go, and the man was no longer there. The driver never even heard the door open or shut, and the man was gone without a trace! The driver got scared and booked it out of that area!

Some of these stories that involve spirits of the dead, the spirit often takes something that belongs to the driver that picked them up, usually a coat or something, and it turns up on the headstone of that hitch-hiker the next day. The spirits are often seen hitch-hiking on the anniversary of their death, and usually their death was caused by some kind of vehicular accident. So if you are going down the highway at night, and you see a hitch-hiker looking for a lift, you may want to keep on driving and not pick them up.