This is the final chapter of Phantoms On Roads And Highways. As you can see I find this stuff fascinating. Maybe it's because these type of apparitions show themselves by complete surprise and out of the blue, which is the most horrifying. You be the judge.
SHE HANGS BY HER NECK DURING THE FULL MOON
From the works of Brad Steiger, Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, And Haunted Places.
By now it is unlikely that anyone really remembers the names of the witnesses who first saw the ghostly image of the young woman hanging from the bridge on the old country road near Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, but nearly everyone agrees that it was two truck drivers who had turned off the main highway at about midnight one night when there was a full moon. As they rounded the bend that approached the old bridge, the driver suddenly slammed on his brakes.
"Look ahead!" he said to his partner. "Look in the full beam of the headlights! There's a woman hanging there on the bridge." As the full impact of the sight penetrated his consciousness, the other man said that they should cut the woman down, as she might still be alive.
There could be few sights creepier than coming upon the swaying body of a hanged woman suspended from the girder of an old country bridge, but the two truckers knew they had to do something - whether it was midnight on a deserted gravel road or not. Their feet had no sooner touched the coarse road when the form of the hanged woman began to fade from their sight.
By the time that they reached the bridge, the woman, noose and all, had completely vanished. The two men stared at each other with open mouths, mouths no longer capable of articulating the fear and confusion that jammed their brains. Just moments before, they had both clearly seen the wretched figure of a hanged woman swaying above the worn wooden planks of the old bridge.
The second sighting of the ghostly hanging was by a young couple coming home from a Saturday night dance, who saw the same grim apparition on the dark and eerie country road. Then other truckers and townspeople began to see the form of the hanging woman in the light of the full moon.
We decided when our team went to investigate the apparition that we would have to be there on site on a night of a full moon, for the ghost had never been sighted at any other time. So on July 19, 1970, with the moon full above us, we sat in my station wagon with the psychic - sensitive Irene Hughes and a number of others, just a few yards away from that haunted country bridge. My associate Glenn and I wanted to see if Irene could pick up on the ghost and the events that led to the hanging without having any prior knowledge of what she might see. All Irene knew was that our research team had taken her out in the Iowa countryside and parked at a particular place.
Just a few minutes before midnight, someone whispered that Irene was in a light trance. "There's someone coming down the road," she said. Two or three people agreed with the sensitive. I strained my eyes to perceive a midnight visitor, but I could see nothing more than a traffic sign advising approaching motorists about the narrow bridge and its load limit.
Irene said nothing. She seemed to be tuned into another dimension, which the rest of us could neither see nor hear. The medium sat in silence for a few more moments, then she spoke, slowly, precisely: "I see a woman swinging in a circle. A circle of confusion. She is disturbed, confused. She feels betrayed. She feels like she wants to jump over the side of the bridge." A high, thin wail seemed to come from the direction of the bridge. Was it only the cry of some night-hunting bird, the distorted complaint of some farm animal, or the keen of a tormented soul? The frogs and crickets seemed undisturbed by any of the possibilities.
"I see a circle," Irene said, speaking once more. "I see a woman committing suicide from this bridge." (Again it must be noted that we had not told Irene what she might expect to see at this lonely country bridge).
"It was a suicide," Irene said. "But there was another person involved. This is most unusual. Usually when someone in spirit appears, they are dressed just as they were in life. I have never hand any spirit who comes to e wrapped in a sheet like so many people think spirits do. But that is just what I saw on the bridge. I saw what looked like somebody wrapped in a sheet!"
"A shroud?" I asked her.
"A shroud," she agreed. "And she tells me her name is Brown. Or maybe it was O'Brien. She was a brunette. I really don't feel that she was a sick person. I feel that this act was just a sudden thing in her life. I feel that there was a husband, but that he was not close by."
Irene sat quietly for a few moments, apparently sifting through the psychic impressions bombarding her from the bridge. "I'm hearing the name Helen," she said, resuming her reportage. "I feel that this woman was having a love affair with a doctor in the community. And I feel that you will find that there was a doctor who left the town rather quickly after this woman took her life. I don't feel that this woman was mentally ill or anything like that. I feel that her life was okay and then, suddenly, involvement with the doctor began."
A reporter who had accompanied us asked how many years ago this happened. Irene said that she had the feeling that it may not have been more than 16 to 20 years ago, around 1950.
"According to the information that I have," Glenn said, "that would seem to be exactly the time that the ghost began to appear."
"Look!" Irene said. "Can you see it? A form was very clear there for an instant."
It may be that our eyes were playing tricks on our group, but on the right-hand side of the bridge, there seemed to be a glowing figure.
"Oh, I see her so clearly," the medium said. "She's wearing a yellow dress." Irene suddenly stopped talking. Then after several seconds of silence, she said: "She keeps telling me, 'Honey, don't talk. Honey, don't tell them.'"
I asked if there was some reason why she didn't want anyone to know why she killed herself.
"I think it is the doctor," Irene said. "I think she was involved with a doctor who left soon after her death."
By this time the researchers had left the station wagon and were standing in the middle of the bridge. There were holes in the wooden planking and we had to move our feet cautiously in order that we not twist an ankle.
"I am getting the impression that some member of her family was from Philadelphia, but she came here from Kansas," Irene said. "I'm seeing a huge sunflower, and that is the sunflower state, isn't it?"
As discreetly as possible, we conducted a follow-up investigation after we spent several hours of a full moon night near the bridge with the legend of a young woman, originally from Kansas and fond of wearing bright yellow dresses, who had come to the area and become romantically involved with a local doctor. The young woman had committed suicide in despair over their impossible love affair, and public opinion, or conscience, had forced the doctor to leave town. While some informants believed that the ghost of the hanging woman might well be the suicidal Kansan, others said that the young woman in question had not hanged herself and that they were unaware of the legend of the haunted bridge.
It is possible, then, that the spirit of the young woman in the bright yellow dress may have hanged herself at the bridge in an earlier decade than the spirit who takes delight in frightening motorists who travel a dark country road. Or maybe she is only an urban legend, who shall be forgotten - until some night when the moon is full and someone turns the bend toward the old country bridge and sees her ghostly figure hanging there.
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