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Variations of the Vanishing Hitchhiker Story

A carload of guys going stag to the prom (now, isn't that suspicious?)
pick up a beautiful young woman hitchhiking. She doesn't have any 
plans for the evening, so she accompanies them to the prom and dances 
with all of them. Yet despite the summer evening, and despite the 
tuxedo jacket that one of them lends her, she's still cold.

When it's time to go home, they drop her off on the pleasant tree-lined
street in front of the quiet house she requests. Next day, the guy 
whose jacket she borrowed goes to collect it. The middle-aged woman 
who answers the door looks surprised, and then shows a photograph of 
the hitchhiking beauty, who was, of course, killed in a car accident 
twenty years earlier on the same stretch of road where the guys picked 
her up.

http://truewish.virtualave.net/legletter5.htm

The Vanishing Hitchhiker

A couple are driving along a highway, when they see a young girl
hitchhiking on the side of the road. It's pretty hot, and she seems
safe enough, so they stop and pick her up.

She thanks them for picking her up, and gives them directions to
her home, a few miles down the road. Other than those few words,
she is silent.

When the couple arrive at the home, they turn around, surprised
that the girl is no longer in their back seat. Thinking she might
have slipped out of the car when they weren't paying attention,
they walk up to the house, and knock on the door.

An older woman opens the door, and doesn't seem surprised to be
greeted by the strangers.

"We picked your daughter up. . ." one of them begins.

"About five miles back, right?"

"Yes! Does she do this often?"

"Only on her birthday. Our daughter died 12 years ago today on
that highway."

======================================================================

There is another version of this story that involved a girl in a prom
dress. It's essentially the same, only the ghostly passenger has
borrowed a jacket from one of the gentlemen who've picked her up
and gives her directions, which take them to a cemetary. Just as
before, she disappears (this time, with the jacket) before they can
let her out of the car.

They decide to return the next day, and once inside the cemetary,
they're surprised to see the missing jacket folded neatly on a
gravestone.

There are versions of this story circulating almost everywhere. Some
versions (such as "Ressurection Mary" from Chicago) have very
specific details about the locale and the phenomena. It's even been
profiled on NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries".

http://www.geocitiessucks.com/Area51/Lair/2287/hitch.html

Posted by Jason on August 10, 1998 at 13:44:59:

The Vanishing Hitchhiker

It was a dark and stormy night,
and that's the honest to God truth.

I could dress it up and say
the rain was thick and the moon
crouched low behind the trees
as if waiting for something to happen
(or perhaps hiding from it). The only light
was the occasional flash of lightning
that always seemed to strike
too close to the road.

But really, the important thing to remember
is that it was dark, the road was wet and
had it not been for the storm and the lightning,
I never would have seen her-- alone, wet and
no doubt cold, waiting by the side of the road.

She was grateful for the ride.

Not many people, she said, stopped
for strangers anymore, at least
not on this part of the highway.

This last part she whispered but I heard it
clearly as if someone had suddenly shouted my name.

At this point, you've probably caught on.
Maybe you've heard this story before
or variations of it. Resurrection Mary or La llorna.
Maybe you're confusing this hitchhiker
with the escaped lunatic disguised as a woman,
an axe handle and thick black hairs
poking from his dress like a copperhead.

Either way, you must be thinking get out of the car,
get rid of this woman. You would know better
than to pick up a stranger on a dark and stormy night,
but if you were driving, it's a sure bet
you would be going to see someone
or perhaps leaving someone behind--
either way, someone would be waiting,
you would be missed. I did not have this luxury.
If this were my story to write, I would say
'I was orphaned to fate', but the truth is
is that my parents were dead and sometimes
bad things happen for no reason at all.
That's all I will say on this
except to add that I had plenty
to drive from but little to drive to.
Try and understand, a beautiful woman
dressed in white, waiting unmistakably
for you does not happen very often.
It's not a chance to be wasted

Let me take a moment to remind you
that it was a dark and stormy night.
In fact, it had been a dark and stormy morning
that never relented. The grey afternoon
blurred with rain until it was as fixed
as the trees, a forest of damp--
gloomy, impenetrable.
I say this because the woman,
my damsel in distress was not wet.
Oh her skin was sleek, so pale
that it shined, making the most
of the dim dashboard lights.
But make no mistake, she was real.
I brushed her knee several times
in reaching for the radio or a cigarette.

Her car had broken down. She went to look
for help and got lost. Easy enough.
the roads here wind and wind, doubling back
on themselves. She was relieved
to have found me, though her face
never lost the expression
of someone who was startled.
She stared out the window into, what?

Though her back was to me, I never lost
the feeling of being watched. She hummed
a song and I began to cry. It was something
my mother used to sing me to sleep.
I thought she written it for me. The dead
can turn up in the strangest of places.

By now, the woods had thinned and the trees
were bare. The rain fell more easily here
and louder. The girl pointed to a faint light
on a hill-- a house, a fire?

I pulled down a long gravel driveway.
Closer to the light I could see someone pacing
by the window. When I looked to see
my grateful passenger, she was gone,
her keys left on the seat.

Though it was raining, and I did not want to leave
the car. I thought I had come this far
and ran to the house. An old woman answered,
with the same startled expression as the girl
but sadder. The girls keys, I said, embarrassed
I had not learned her name.

Where did you get these, she asked grabbing
at the silver ring.

They were the girl's, she said she lived here.
I was getting wetter. My shirt was stuck to my chest
and beads of rain were making their way
down my back.

My daughter? she asked. My daughter?

Of course, I thought, the sad eyes
and the tangled hair. Yes, I smiled weakly,
cold and wet, wanting to go inside and dry out
by the fire, to see the girl in the light.

"She died 30 years ago, murdered on this road."

Inside the house was still, silent
even over the rain. I left thinking
the woman touched, still unsure
of where I was going and stuck
with this unrelenting song replaying
over and over in my head.

The Vanishing Prison Guard

By Kelsey Tyler

John Mark was handsome and carefree, twenty-five years old and at a crossroads. Raised in a God-fearing home, he knew he had strayed away from his upbringing. But recently he had begun to experiment with drugs and a faster lifestyle, which threatened to destroy his chances to ever turn back. He was in college, but without any particular direction in life. He sometimes wondered what point there was in working so hard for an uncertain future.

These were his thoughts one night in 1982 as he drove along the Florida Turnpike. Why not, he told himself, give in to the pressures around him? At least the parties he'd been attending-and the drugs he'd been doing-gave him some satisfaction.Even if it was temporary.

The longer Mark thought about his situation, the more he began to believe that he should drop out of college. Life would be simpler, something seemed to be telling him, if he weren't so burdened with responsibilities.

"And the last thing I need to get messed up with right now is church," he mumbled out loud, peering straight ahead into the dark Florida night. That had been his mother's suggestion but he had rebelled against the idea since first hearing it. "Never helped me any before," he'd told her. "Can't help me much now."

Mark drove on until, suddenly, he spotted what looked like a fully dressed prison guard hitchhiking along the side of the road. Mark had never picked up a hitchhiker, but something about the man suggested he was on the way to work and genuinely in need of a ride. Mark pulled over and rolled down his window. The man stooped down and looked inside, smiling.

"Need a ride?" Mark asked tentatively.

"Thanks, I was hoping you'd stop," he said, each word carefully measured. "Car's broken down."

Mark nodded in understanding and opened his car door. He hadn't seen any broken-down cars alongside the roadway, but the man seemed kind enough. Mark was not afraid that his hitchhiking might be some kind of ruse to rob or harm him.

Mark glanced at his passenger and saw that the man was well into his fifties, with graying hair and a mustache. He had kind, blue eyes and a face that seemed filled with light. His prison guard uniform was perfectly pressed, and he seemed strangely out of place in it.

"You a prison guard?" Mark asked, picking up speed and resuming his drive along the highway.

The man nodded. "Just got off work. State penitentiary back down the road a ways." There was only one such prison in the vicinity and Mark knew the place.

"What's your name?"

"Kenneth. Kenneth Hawes. Worked at the prison for the past ten Mark was silent a moment. "I have a long drive ahead of me. Where are you going?" Mark noticed that the man seemed unusually calm and relaxed, considering he was with a stranger in an unfamiliar car after a breakdown of his own.

"Home," he said softly, smiling at Mark as if home were the most wonderful place in the world. "About an hour up the road. Now, why don't you tell me what's on your mind?"

Mark was unsure what to make of the man, but he shrugged and started telling him his age and what he was studying in school. "No," the man said softly. "Tell me about the crossroad."

Mark stared at the man, wondering how he could have known to ask such a question.

"What?" he asked.

"You know what I mean. You have some choices you're trying to make, don't you?"

Mark felt strangely uncomfortable, as if the man could somehow read his thoughts. But he shrugged once again, convincing himself that the man could not possibly have known anything about his personal life. The stranger was only lonely and looking for conversation.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said. With a loud sigh, Mark decided to tell the man the truth. He told him about his upbringing and how his parents prayed for him daily.

"But I'm different now, that kind of life is in my past," Mark said, waving his hand as if to indicate he would never again involve himself in organized religion.

"No," the man's voice was sudden and firm. Mark looked at him; he was shaking his head. "It's closer than you think."

"You're a prison guard, what would you know?" Mark asked, suddenly irritated with this strange man's intrusive comments.

"I do know," he said. The man's answer was not defensive or angry, but he spoke with a finality that set Mark on edge.

"Well, that's about it. I have a couple ways I could go and it looks like I'm taking the one that fits me best. Forget school, forget religion. Forget everything."

The man said nothing. He stared straight ahead for several min- utes before turning again toward Mark. "Mark, you know there's only one way, don't you?"

"Look, thanks for listening but I'm tired of talking. My exit is coming up. Where can I drop you off?"

The man smiled, his attitude unchanged by Mark's brusqueness. With a series of directions, he led Mark to a busy intersection. "This is close enough, Mark."

"Listen, I can take you to your house. Really. It's too late to be walking home alone out here."

"I can find my home from here," he said, shaking his head firmly and turning to face Mark squarely. "Make the right choice, son. Now. You still have the chance, you know."

He climbed out, shut the door and waved once before turning away and walking up the street. For a moment Mark wanted to follow him, to spend more time talking with him and to glean something from the wisdom he seemed to possess. But the night was late and he had school in the morning. He pulled his car back onto the main road and headed back toward the turnpike.

Through the night and into the next morning Mark thought over everything the man had said. How had he known so much? And why would he have been hitch-hiking home when he lived so far from the prison? Finally Mark decided he needed to talk to the man once more. He called the prison from his dormitory that afternoon.

"I'd like to speak to Kenneth Hawes," Mark said. "He's a prison guard."

There was a pause on the other end. "I don't believe he works here."

Mark furrowed his eyebrows. "Of course he works there. He was working yesterday evening, and I gave him a ride home. He had his uniform on and everything."

"Well, sir, I can let you talk with my supervisor, but to my knowledge there isn't any prison guard named Kenneth Hawes at this facility."

"Fine," Mark said, and he could feel his frustration rising. "Let me talk to your supervisor."

The supervisor spent ten minutes convincing Mark that there wasn't now and never had been a Kenneth Hawes employed at the prison. At Mark's request, she also checked the other prison facilities in the state but none of them employed a Kenneth Hawes either.

Stunned, Mark hung up the phone. The man had ridden with him for more than an hour, giving him advice about his life and trying to point him in the right direction. Now he had disappeared, almost as if he had never existed.

Frustrated and wanting to share the story, Mark called his mother that evening and told her what had happened.

"Sometimes God gets our attention in interesting ways," his mother said quietly. "Did you ever think that he might have been an angel?"

"An angel? Like in the Bible stories?" Mark asked doubtfully.

"Why not? God is still God, and His ways aren't so different now than in Bible times," she said.

For several weeks Mark considered the possibility until, finally, he was convinced that his mother was right. Kenneth must have been an angel sent to guide him through a time in his life when he had crucial choices to make. How better for God to get his attention than with a prison guard, especially in light of the choices he'd been making lately.

Almost overnight, Mark decided he would no longer involve him self in harmful activities, such as drugs and all-night parties. Instead, over the next year he doubled his efforts toward school and began attending church again. In the process, he found a peace and assurance he had never believed could exist. Eventually, Mark earned a degree in telecommunications and went on to serve as a news reporter for one of the television news shows in southern Florida.

More than a decade later, he is as certain as ever that God used an angel to change his life.

Collected off internet 10/99 : http://www.angels-online.com/guard.html

Jesus on the Highway

A couple are driving along a highway, when they see a young man.
well dressed, hitchhiking on the side of the road. It's pretty hot, and
he seems safe enough, so they stop and pick him up.

When he gets in their car, he is silent for many miles. As they approach
a tollbooth, he leans forward and whispers, "Jesus will come again,".
When they arrive at the tollbooth, the wife turns around to retrieve
her purse, and is startled to see that the young man is gone.

Worried that he might have been hurt, the husband tells the toll
taker about the young man they had picked up, and he replies
that he's heard that story 20 times in the last two weeks, and no one
has seen the vanishing hitchhiker to his final destination.

For obvious reasons, I am not going to debate the validity of this
story, only comment that it has circulated throughout the US and
Canada for the last five years or so, always having happened to a
"Friend of a Friend".

http://www.geocitiessucks.com/Area51/Lair/2287/jesus.html

Sunday, Nov. 15, 1998

Hitchhiker tale never fades away (Gabriel's horn)

By Larry Cheek
Staff columnist/Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer-Times

The Man in the Hat said he had a story for me. It had happened to a friend of a friend of his mother’s, he said, which made me suspicious, because FOAF tales are notoriously unprovable.

He was calling from the wilds of Sampson County, where mysterious happenings are commonplace. This one concerned a schoolteacher from Four Oaks, which, come to think of it, isn’t in Sampson County, but that’s OK, because the event that was supposed to have happened probably didn’t, anyway.

Not that I suggested to The Man in the Hat (so called because he is always wearing one, never of the same type) that his story was suspect. He takes great pride in the tales he tells, and even as you read this, he is surely busy trying to find the aforementioned schoolteacher to verify what his mother had told him.

I think he’ll be looking for a while. But if he didn’t look, didn’t investigate the story, I might have to do it. And that would be unthinkable, because the search would take most of my lifetime.

It was the week after Halloween. The schoolteacher, a woman between 50 and 60 in age, was driving home from school down I-40 when she saw a man walking along the road.

He wasn’t trying to hitch a ride. He was just walking, but something told the woman to stop and offer him a ride, even though she’d never stopped to pick up a hitchhiker, or any other wayfaring stranger, even once in her life before.

Almost before she knew what she was doing, she had pulled over. The man thanked her, and got into the back seat. She told him it would be OK if he sat up front. He refused, and stayed in the back.

The man said nothing for five minutes. He just sat there, looking out the window as they rolled down the highway. Then, he spoke.

Passenger disappears

"Gabriel has his horn poised and is getting ready to blow," he said.

Startled, the driver looked at him in her rearview mirror. "What did you say?" she asked him.

"Gabriel has his horn poised and is getting ready to blow," he repeated.

The woman slowed her car, turned around, and looked in the back seat. The man had disappeared. She had been driving 70 miles per hour, on the interstate, and quick as a blink, her passenger had somehow vanished from the car.

At the next exit she turned around and went back up the road, searching the shoulders for any sign of the man.

She saw nothing.

Then she called the Highway Patrol. "You’re going to think I’m crazy," she said, and when she finished telling her story, the patrol dispatcher said, "No, ma’am, we’ve had 11 other reports today of the same thing."

The Man in the Hat said he’d see his mother at lunch and ask her about it. He said a friend of his in South Carolina had heard the same story from somebody it had happened to in Wilmington. He’d call me back when he had more information.

I hate to be a spoilsport, or do anything to discourage The Man in the Hat in his search for the truth, but he should be advised that The Vanishing Hitchhiker story has been around for years.

It was even the title of a book by Utah professor Jan Harold Brunvand. The modern version of the story came out of Arkansas in 1980, with Jesus Christ coming again substituted for Gabriel blowing his horn the only substantive difference.

An older hitchhiker story involves a girl in a formal dress standing by the side of the road who is picked up by two boys on their way to the prom. They dance with her, even though each notices that her skin seems a bit cold.

They gave her a coat to wear and later dropped her off at the house where she said she lived. They forgot to get the coat back, and when they returned to the house a woman met them and said the girl was her daughter but she was dead and buried.

They went to view the grave and there, draped across the tombstone, was the young man’s coat.

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/foto/news/content/1998/tx98nov/n15cheek.htm

Resurrection Mary

Submitted by: Layne Bischoff

Bob, I live in Chicago and we have a rather famous haunting that I thought you may be interested in and want to post on your web site.

One of the best known haunting's in Chicago is Resurrection Mary. She is also known as the Vanishing Hitchhiker. Around 1933 a young girl about 20 years old by the name of what some believe to be Mary Bregavy was killed by a hit and run driver on her way home from a dance. She was killed on Archer Avenue in Justice Illinois which is located in southern Chicago between the ballroom where the dance was held and the Resurrection Cemetery. She had supposedly had a fight with her boy friend and was hitchhiking home when she was struck and killed by a car. The young lady was buried in Resurrection Cemetery. About 5 years after her death (around 1938-39) the first sighting appeared. There have been countless reports since that time of different people seeing or giving rides to this young lady right up to the present day. The ghost is reported to be blond with blue eyes and looks like a living person but says hardly a word. She is always dressed in a white gown and dancing shoes. Many people (Cab drivers, police officers & motorists) have reported seeing the spirit as she walks along the side of the road between the dance hall and cemetery hitchhiking and then vanishs into thin air. Cab drivers and many other people have reported picking up a young lady and giving her a ride (always fitting the same description) who when they talk to says very little but when they reach a certain point in the road just disappears from the car. Many other people have called the police and reported hitting a lady on the road in front of the cemetery while driving by that just ran out in front of them. When ambulances and police have arrived the drivers of the autos have stated that the body just vanished. One time the police noted that they could still see the indentation of a body where it had been laying in the grass on the side of the road, but no body. We have had several articles in local news papers and stories printed about Mary for many years and she has became quiet a local legend and celebrity, just thought I would share this with you. I enjoy your site, keep the stories coming, Layne

Collected off internet 10/18/99 http://www.inconnect.com/~ghostown/haunts21.htm

Resurrection Cemetery

One of the Midwest's, and America's, favorite ghost stories is the tale of Resurrection Mary, the vanishing hitchhiker. The cemetery, located in Justice, Illinois has been home to this famous spirit since the 1930's.

One cold Winter night around 1934, a young girl was killed in an accident coming home from the O. Henry Ballroom (now Willowbrook Ballroom) on Archer Avenue in Justice, a southern suburb of Chicago. Her name was Mary and many believe that she may have been a young Polish girl named Mary Bregavy, although her exact identity is still unknown. The girl was buried in Resurrection Cemetery, dressed in her favorite gown and wearing the same dancing shoes she had worn on her final date.

She rested peacefully for the next five years, but in 1939 a cab driver picked up a young girl on Archer Avenue wearing a white gown. It was a snowy January night, but the girl was not wearing a coat. She jumped in the front door of the cab and sat by the driver. She gave him instructions to get her home, saying that he needed to go north on Archer. Suddenly, she told him to stop and the driver looked out the window to where she had pointed. He turned back to the passenger seat and saw that the girl had vanished. . .and the door had never opened. The cab was directly in front of Resurrection Cemetery.

Over the years, sightings of Mary have been frequent. Many young men even claim to have picked her up and taken her dancing with them. Some very reliable witnesses say they have kissed her and found her lips chilled with cold. As they take her home, she always disappears when they reach Resurrection Cemetery.

One night in 1977, a passing motorist saw Mary holding onto the bars of the cemetery gate. He called the police, thinking a girl was trapped inside of the locked cemetery. Investigators found no one inside when they arrived but two of the bars in the gate were bent apart and small hand prints were etched into the iron. Supervisors at the cemetery had the sections of the gate cut out to keep the curiosity seekers away. They were embarrassed into welding them back into place a year later. Between the time they were removed and then replaced, the bars were analyzed by a lab for trickery. It was determined that on one would have made those hand prints without applying extremely high amounts of heat. The indention can still be seen in the gate today (see photo at beginning of this section).

As the years have passed, sightings of Mary have continued. Cab drivers, motorists, reputable witnesses like police officers and ministers, and ghost hunters have reported the spirit as she walks along the side of the road or vanishes from the interior of moving automobiles. She has become one of the most famous ghosts of all time. Does she still haunt the gates and roadsides near Resurrection Cemetery? Here is your chance to find out.

Resurrection Cemetery is located along Archer Avenue in Justice, Illinois. Follow 95th Street to Roberts Road, which goes north to Archer. The cemetery is located at 7600 South Archer Avenue. This street will also take you to Mary's favorite haunt, the Willowbrook Ballroom.

Collected off internet 10/18/99 http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/7610/Resurrection_Mary.html

Resurrection Mary

"The Most Famous Ghost in Chicagoland"

by: Troy Taylor

The following is an excerpt. To read the full story visit the website, Ghosts of the Prairie, the home of the American Ghost Society.

Author Troy Taylor is seeking ghost stories, legends and first-hand accounts of spirits and the supernatural for an upcoming book called Haunted Illinois. If you have a story or a location within the state of Illinois that you would like to share, full credit will be given in the book.... although those who request it may remain anonymous.

http://www.daddezio.com/cemetery/articles/haunted.html