Road ghost sightings

[Dr B]

Why exactly is it described as female? How much detail is seen its "face"?

because that is how it is seen - actually i think ambiguous shapes are easier to identify as female. thats why monks / nuns / etc were common (long dress shape down to the ground).

Why do the witnesses think it is distressed?

because some witnesses saw 'her' hunched over against the wall in a position that suggested it. Not everyone describes it this way - but some have.

The real bother to me is that a fog/gas/dust effect would very rarely look human and on the rare occasions it does it would be unlikely to always look like a girl.

Actually quite the opposite i think - the outline of a female shape (imagine a dress to the floor) is less complex than that for a male.

Another thing is that a misty form would not look solid but people contacting the police about a girl suggests a solid figure is what they see.

with headlight reflection - it does appear solid in parts.

Also those conditions happen in most places and surely on more than that one kilometer section of that road. Why are these sightings not widespread. I think it must be a combination of factors that produce this effect in such a narrow area. Looking for one single cause may be fruitless.

I totally agree - but i would add that no one is suggesting a single cause - we have been discussing possibilities and trying to just play with ideas for plausibility.

[ZERO]

because that is how it is seen - actually i think ambiguous shapes are easier to identify as female. thats why monks / nuns / etc were common (long dress shape down to the ground).



because some witnesses saw 'her' hunched over against the wall in a position that suggested it. Not everyone describes it this way - but some have.



Actually quite the opposite i think - the outline of a female shape (imagine a dress to the floor) is less complex than that for a male.

So it is a vague figure? I had the impression it was fairly detailed.

I totally agree - but i would add that no one is suggesting a single cause - we have been discussing possibilities and trying to just play with ideas for plausibility.

No one else has.
I had been trying to think of one though.

this is roughly how i did the pilot - with a video camera on my dashboard

Any chance of posting the video online for those of us playing at home?
It would be good to see the actual road.

[SimonC]

DrB - Just out of interest, is the stretch of road in question considered to be an 'accident blackspot' at all?

I ask this because the road close to me ( the A12 near Hopton ) is absolutely notorious and there have been very many fatal accidents close to the location of the 'ghost'. I wonder if the characterisitcs of the road itself might be a factor somehow.

Eta - what is the terrain like, adjacent to the road? Is it farmland, for example? Also, are the sightings clustered at any particular time of year? If dust is a possibility, then I wonder if there might be a correlation between signtings and, for example, harvesting crops - a lot of dust is created during harvest, and does tend to drift across roads ( I saw exactly this last weekend, along the A143, when I drove from Suffolk to Brimingham ).

[Mulder]

I totally agree - but i would add that no one is suggesting a single cause - we have been discussing possibilities and trying to just play with ideas for plausibility.

Just to clarify, I AM suggesting a single cause, given the consistency of the reports. However, that single cause may only occur when several different factors come together, making it an unusual coincidence. Thus, it may only happen when if there is a light mist coupled with a full moon and the car steers a specific course in the road. Also, there are witness factors that might have to be present too. For instance, a belief in ghosts, a tendency to look around a lot while driving (so that many objects are only seen for a fraction of a second) and perhaps day dreaming.

I have found that misperception occurs mostly when either an object is difficult to see (dark, distant, etc) or is only seen very briefly. Interestingly, these factors are frequently present in ghost reports.

[MischiefMonkey]

Has the sighting ever been made by two people in the car together or only by single drivers?

The brain has so much to concentrate when driving, especially at dusk and at night. So would you think this would contribute to the increased 'mis-perception'?

The view from the passenger seat is so different! When driving I know where exactly on the road I am, in the passenger seat I often feel too close to the left. (Or maybe my 'drivers' are driving too close to the side).

Were any of the cars left hand drive? Any really low driving position (Mazda 323 for example) or really high (Range Rover). Did they pass any other cars going the other way shortly after - could an oncoming car's headlights acted as a light source?

Would visual acuity have any baring - even corrected with glasses/contact lenses?

I had a weird mis-perception today while driving. In slow traffic, a car with a German Shepard sat on the front passenger seat was oncoming. In the time it took to think 'thats not a good idea' and my attention more fully turn to the passenger, the 'German Shepard' had 'turned' into a woman with long, light brown hair!! Unless I live in an area with an unusually high incidence of lycanthropy, my brain made one hell of a short cut!!

[Mulder]

Misperceptions are commoner than many people imagine. Once you realise they can happen, you start to notice them all the time. Recently I turned a tree into a person! If believers realised just how common misperceptions were and how vivid and detailed they can appear, they might start to wonder ... or maybe not.

[ZERO]

@ DrB

How are things going with this?
I'm interested to know of any developments.

[ZERO]

Bump.

[Dr B]

swamped with undergraduate degree marks, meetings, and classifications at the moment...i have not forgotten and will get back to you over the coming weeks....

Many thanks for the bump....it is appreciated...

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Recently I turned a tree into a person!

Lady Muck has just asked me whether you can do anything for frogs.

[ZERO]

swamped with undergraduate degree marks, meetings, and classifications at the moment...i have not forgotten and will get back to you over the coming weeks....

Many thanks for the bump....it is appreciated...

Looking forward to it. Thank you.

[bindeweede]

Lady Muck has just asked me whether you can do anything for frogs.

But surely Her Ladyship realises you are a Prince already.

(Will get these smiley things right one day.)

[Mulder]

Lady Muck has just asked me whether you can do anything for frogs.

Today I was on a train, thinking of nothing in particular, when there was a standard announcement over the tannoy about the next stop. I heard it as something completely different and quite bizarre - sadly I can't remember what I 'heard' or what the announcement really was. I had heard the standard announcement many times.

Interestingly, the substitute words formed a complete sentence which neatly incorporated the name of the next stop! It is the clever way our brains incorporate some bits of real sensory input with other imaginery bitsd, to make perfect sense of the whole, that is probably why ghosts look so real to people.

[Dr B]

So it is a vague figure? I had the impression it was fairly detailed.

Define detail? Some consistent details have been reported - not sure i would describe it as 'fairly detailed' myself - but some noteworthy aspects.

Any chance of posting the video online for those of us playing at home?
It would be good to see the actual road.

no plans at present - but maybe one of the future. Alternatively - go check it out for yourself - there is no substitute for active investigating

[Dr B]

DrB - Just out of interest, is the stretch of road in question considered to be an 'accident blackspot' at all?

not in the precise spot of the sightings - but about a quarter of a mile further away - yes there are often collisions.

I wonder if the characterisitcs of the road itself might be a factor somehow.

which is exactly what we are looking into it is difficult to define the statisitical properties of this type of information - but we are going to try to do something here in terms of context, visual suggestive surroundings, twists, turns, hills, bad corners, woods, trees, sources of ambiguous information and so on.

...are the sightings clustered at any particular time of year?

mentioned above - but usually autumn and spring (Sept, Oct, Nov have most but some in Feb and March)

If dust is a possibility, then I wonder if there might be a correlation between signtings and, for example, harvesting crops - a lot of dust is created during harvest, and does tend to drift across roads ( I saw exactly this last weekend, along the A143, when I drove from Suffolk to Brimingham ).

certainly worth investigating - but the nature of some of the sightings suggest not. There is no immediate harvest of that type in the vicinity. I do think marsh mist from the river is responsible for other sightings over a mile away on the same stretch of road - but these are totally separate the ones i am trying to investigate here