PHANTOMS ON ROADS AND HIGHWAYS - Part One

RESURRECTION MARY, ARCHER AVENUE, CHICAGO


From the works of Brad Steiger, Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, And Haunted Places




     Chicago paranormal researcher Richard Crowe has quite a file on "Resurrection Mary," a beautiful phantom hitchhiker who haunts Chicago's South Side.  "She was buried in Resurrection Cemetery on Archer Avenue, which is where she gets her nickname," Crowe explained.  "During the 1930's, and 1940's, Mary was often picked up at dances by various people.  She would ask for a ride toward Resurrection Cemetery, saying that she lived down that way.  As people drove her home, she would yell at them to stop in front of the cemetery gates.  She would get out of the car, run across the road, and dematerialize at the gate."

     Crowe mentioned a report wherein two young men were fascinated by watching this beautiful blond dance by them, but when she passed near them they got the strangest sensation.  That night when they got home, they told their father about this woman.  They'd never heard of 'Resurrection Mary,' but their father recognized her by the description they provided.

     "I investigated and found out that a week before this sighting, Mary had been seen dancing around the cemetery's fence," Crowe said.

     Crowe told me that he had numerous first person accounts of people who have had Mary open their car doors and jump in, but he had only one going to the street address she gave him.  According to the man's report, Mary had sat in the front between the driver and him.  Their friend sat in the back seat.  When they approached the front gate at Resurrection Cemetery, she asked them to stop and let her out.  It was a few minutes before midnight, and the young men had protested, saying she couldn't possibly live there.  According to the narrator of the story, Mary said, "I know.  But I have to get out.

     "So being gentlemen and she being so beautiful, we let her out, and she left without saying another word," he told Crowe.  "She crossed the road running, and as she approached the gate, she disappeared."

     The young man continued with his account:  "She had given me her name and address, so early Monday morning, all three of us guys came to the number and street in the stockyards area.  We climbed the front steps to her home.  We rang and knocked on the door.  The mother opened the door, and lo and behold, the girl's color picture was on the piano, looking right at us.  The mother said she was dead.  We told her our story and left.  My friend and I did not pursue the matter any more, and we haven't seen her again.  All three of us went into the service thereafter and lost contact with each other."




THE HAUNTED HIGHWAYS AND ROADS OF GREAT BRITAIN




     People have been traveling about at night in carriages and coaches far longer in Great Britain than in the United States, so there seems little question that their shadowy highways should have an inordinate number of ghosts at the side of the road.


          The A23


     The United Kingdom's most haunted road is said to be A23 between London and Brighton, where numerous motorists have sighted a small girl with no hands or feet, a specter in a white trench coat, and a ghost dressed in cricketer's clothing.


          The A465


     On a stretch of the A465 near Bromyard in Herefordshire, villagers are concerned that the ghost of an accident from more than 60 years ago could be haunting the country road.  A farmer reported as many as 26 drivers crashing into his fence during an 18 month period.  Some motorists stated that they mysteriously lost control of their vehicles, that they felt their steering wheels pulled from their hands, as they approached the haunted area.


          The A12


     On a dark night in the 1970's, a lorry driver was traveling north up the A12 on a narrow stretch of road outside Blythburgh in Suffolk when he was horrified to see in the road ahead of him a man riding in a small cart pulled by a horse and a woman walking beside the cart.  He swerved to attempt to avoid hitting them, but the road runs between high banks at that point.  Thus unable to leave the road, he slammed into the pair and their horse and cart.

     Shaking with dread and remorse, assuming that he must surely have killed the two, the driver stepped down from his can and began to walk back along the road, fearing at any moment to come upon the grisly remains.  He found nothing.  He walked back to his truck, looked underneath and around the vehicle.  Nothing.

     At last he drove on, baffled but relieved that he apparently had not harmed anyone.  Later, he learned that the folk of Blythburgh often encounter the cart, the driver, and the woman crossing that piece of road, and the historians among them believe the ghosts date back to the eighteenth century.


          Blue Bell Hill


     Since 1965 dozens of drivers have slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting a pretty young woman in a flowing white dress standing in the road on Blue Bell Hill in Maidstone, England.  The phantom is said to be that of a woman who was to have been a bridesmaid for her best friend when she died in a car crash the night before the wedding.  Her spirit appears still dressed in her flowing bridesmaid's gown, still attempting to get to the wedding on time.