Eerie encounter with the 17th century
1954, June - Mr. and Mrs. George Benson from Battersea on Sunday got out into nature in the picturesque surroundings of the town of Wotton (Surrey, England). They began their walk by visiting the Evelyn family church. They had long been interested in the personality of John Evelyn, a 17th-century chronicler, and wondered how many of his family were buried in the churchyard.
After examining the cemetery and already leaving its gates, the couple noticed a path that ran along the church fence and led further to the top of a nearby hill. On both sides of the path were thickets of bushes, from which a discordant bird noise could be heard.
The couple climbed the path to the top of the hill. A wide clearing stretched out in front of them, on its edge stood a massive bench, which was assembled from thick oak beams and planks. To the left, at the far end of the clearing, several trees rustled with foliage. On the right side, the hill sloped steeply towards the forest - from there came the barking of dogs and the clatter of woodcutters' axes.
Mr. Benson took his watch out of his pocket and saw that it was already noon. He unrolled the bag of sandwiches and the couple began their meal. Later they confessed to each other that at that time each of them was seized by a certain painful, anxious state … Just touching the food, Mrs. Benson began with a sad look to crush bread and throw it to the birds.
And then there was a truly eerie silence. As if on command, the clatter of axes died down, the dogs fell silent, the birds fell silent. And at that moment Mrs. Benson, with some sixth sense, felt and out of the corner of her eye saw that three gloomy figures in black robes appeared behind her. She felt scared. She wanted to turn, but could not even move.
Her husband did not notice anything unusual, but saw how his wife changed in her face. Taking her hand, he was horrified - the hand was cold as ice.
After a while Mrs. Benson came to her senses, and Mr. and Mrs Benson decided to leave the gloomy place. They went down the hill, crossed the railroad tracks and still wanted to wander around the neighborhood, but then, unexpectedly, they were attacked by terrible sleepiness - they lay down on the grass and instantly fell asleep …
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What happened next, both remember rather vaguely. As a result, the couple somehow ended up at Dorking railway station, a few miles from Wotton. There they boarded the train and returned home to Battersea.
For the next two years Mrs. Benson was in a state of confusion. She could not forget the horror that gripped her at the appearance of sinister personalities in black clothes. Finally, to get rid of the glamor, she decided to "knock out a wedge with a wedge." Without saying anything to her husband, Mrs Benson went alone to a gloomy place. She wanted to climb to the top of the hill again and make sure that there were still birds chirping merrily and there were no personalities in black …
When Mrs. Benson approached the familiar church, she was surprised to see that everything around looked very different. The first thing that caught my eye was that there was no path leading to the top of the hill, because … the hill itself was not there either!.. There was a flat, flat space all around - no bushes, no trees within a radius of about a kilometer …
After asking a local resident, Mrs. Benson found out that there is not and has never been anything similar to the landscape that she described. Moreover, her interlocutor categorically asserted that there was no bench nearby, and besides, there was still an oak one …
Back home, Mrs. Benson told her husband about her trip. He, as a man of a purely practical nature, considered what his wife had told him to be some strange fantasy and decided to figure it out himself.
The next Sunday, Mr. Benson went to Wotton. Approaching the church, he, to his great surprise, was convinced of the absolute truthfulness of his wife's story.
This mysterious case was learned by Dr. Mary Rose Barrington of the London Society for Psychical Research. After talking with the Bensons, she was convinced of their undoubted sincerity and truthfulness. To find a clue to the surprising incident, Barrington began to study the chronicles of John Evelyn. And she found it!.. In the chronicles she read a record that on March 16, 1696, “three despicable villains were executed, among them was one clergyman, exposed as participants in a Catholic conspiracy to assassinate King William”.
Dr. Barrington also found a description of the execution ceremony and the location where it took place. The area turned out to be very similar to the one that appeared before the eyes of a married couple in the vicinity of the Evelyn family church more than two years ago.
Mary Barrington believes that the couple managed to penetrate into "anomalous reality" and that their passion for the work of John Evelyn in some incomprehensible way helped them to find themselves in his world, which existed in the past about 250 years ago.
Ghost victims of accidents
On a certain section of the ring road around the English city of Sheffield, right in front of the hood of cars, a person sometimes appears from nowhere. Drivers will only find out that this is a ghost only later, often after a serious accident. According to police, the ghost has appeared on this section of the road 57 times over the last 6 years.
1992 - Near the town of Bluebell Hill in Kent, a girl in a white dress ran out onto the road in front of the car of a certain John Sharpe. The collision could not be avoided. Sharpe immediately called the police and returned to the scene. But his victim was gone.
They say that this kind of incident happened right there 20 years ago, when another driver ran over to death the same girl. He covered the body with a blanket and went to the police. When he returned with the police, there was no body on the road. There was only a blanket. Researchers of the paranormal phenomena found that back in 1956 on this section of the highway, a bride and three accompanying her who were traveling to a wedding died in an accident.
Some of these encounters with ghosts can probably be explained by quite real, "earthly" reasons - from the hallucinations of the driver caused by fatigue to inventions for self-promotion. Some, but not all. Many of them were attended by several people to whom it is difficult to attribute collusion or collective hallucination. In addition, “in the course of the play” such information often became known that could only be obtained from their main participants - the ghosts themselves …
Ghost at the airbase
1951 February - Major Charles Bordeaux, a resident of Miami, was sent to England, to the Special Investigations Department of the Air Force Headquarters. He was instructed to investigate the case of the mysterious murder at an English airbase of an American pilot who was allegedly shot by a sentry from the airfield security.
Arriving at the place, the major learned the following. A sentry standing at night at the post suddenly saw a man running between two B-36 bombers standing on the airfield. The sentry, according to the charter, shouted to him three times: "Stop!" When the man did not stop, he started shooting at him.
“I can swear that I hit the guy,” the sentry assured the people who ran to the shots. - But when I ran to those two planes, there was no one there. He disappeared.
Unfortunately, one of the sentry's bullets hit a nearby American pilot and killed him.
While investigating, Bordeaux spoke with officers at the airfield that unfortunate night. Here is what one of the officers told him:
“I don’t know if what I’m going to tell you has anything to do with the absurd death of our comrade. Late in the evening, shortly before this tragedy happened, I was returning to the air base. On the way, I was stopped by a man in the uniform of an English military pilot and asked to give him a lift. Once in the car, the Englishman asked permission to smoke a cigarette and asked if I had a lighter. I gave him a lighter. Then I heard him click it, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a flashing light. But when the next moment I turned my head to my passenger, I saw that there was no one in the car except me, and my lighter was lying on an empty seat … the ghost disappeared."
Ghost hitchhiker
1982, November 20 - late in the evening, Arab trader Abdel Haiz Rasey, who lives in Puerto Rico, was driving from Mayaguez to his home in Arecibo. Driving along the section of the road that the local population calls "Chain", he saw a voting man at the side of the road. He was a visibly balding 35-year-old man wearing a gray shirt and brown jeans. For some reason, the driver did not like the hitchhiker, and he didn’t stop.
When, after some time, Abdel slowed down at a red traffic light, the car's engine suddenly stopped. On all attempts to launch it, he only sneezed. While the merchant was fiddling with the engine, the right front door of the car suddenly opened and the same balding guy sat in the passenger seat.
“Hello, I'm Roberto,” the uninvited passenger introduced himself to the distraught Abdel. “Please give me a ride to the Alturas de Aguarda area. I haven’t seen my wife Esperanza and our son for almost two months.”
Abdel said that his wife was also waiting for him at home in Arecibo, and therefore he could not fulfill Roberto's request. But he began to persuade Abdel, who in the end agreed to take the annoying "fellow traveler" to the restaurant "El Nido" if the car's engine starts up again. At the same time, Abdel, without even hoping, turned the ignition key once again, and, to his surprise, the engine rumbled quietly and confidently.
During a short trip together, Roberto for some reason began to advise Abdel to drive more carefully and, while driving, never drink alcohol. He also asked Abdel to pray for him.
As he drove into the parking lot near the restaurant and carefully looked in the rearview mirror, Abdel promised the uninvited passenger to take his recommendations into account, and also pray for him next Sunday.
A common story, you say? Meanwhile, the public in the parking lot had a completely different opinion. Some with surprise, and some with fright, watched as the driver of the approaching car said something animatedly … to himself! One of the onlookers approached the car and asked Abdel through the open window if he needed help.
“Thank you, I'm fine,” the merchant replied. - But this gentleman (he jabbed his finger to the right) for some reason asks me not to drive on the road, and even pray for him."
With these words, Abdel turned to his annoying passenger, but saw next to him only an empty chair …
Abdel suffered a nervous shock. Passers-by called the police, who took the shocked man to a nearby hospital. When Abdel came to his senses and calmed down a little, he informed the law enforcement officers about his meeting with the ghost, describing in detail the appearance of the ghostly companion.
Police officers Alfredo Vega and Gilberto Castro listened attentively and with genuine interest to the story, but nevertheless took it very suspiciously. And yet they took the address from the man, which was given to him by the mysteriously disappeared passenger, and went to the Alturas de Aguarda area.
A pretty young woman with a small child in her arms opened the police door. She informed them that her name was Esperanza and that she was the widow of Roberto Valentino Carbo, who had died in a car accident on October 6, 1982. He was wearing a gray shirt and brown jeans that day. She also added that Roberto was a kind man and a good husband, though not very young, and that his appearance was slightly spoiled by a noticeable bald head.
As Abdel later learned, the tragedy took place at the very place where the ghost of Roberto for the first time tried to stop his car.
V. Pimenova