I took to wondering what connection there might be between these phantom hitchhikers and 'Wandering Ghosts', rare supernatural entities that are not tied to a specific location, obect, or person, if any.
Now to say Wandering Ghosts are completely untethered to anything is not entirely correct and merely putting that forth is not comprehensive on my part. These 'free-roaming' spirits are sometimes connected to the general locations of the roads they haunt, though there are certainly numerous claims and reports of spectres that can travel such distances as to make their 'point of origin' unclear. Furthermore, many such stories of these ghosts tie them to an event rather than a person, place, or physical thing.
I'm curious as to how I would go about learning more regarding this sort of entity without encountering one myself."
-Sebastian Pott, April 1950.
There are two [general] classes of Roaming Ghosts: Full-Roaming and Free-Roaming.
Full-Roaming ghosts are capable of movement throughout a given area, whether that space is a single floor in a luxury hotel, everywhere within the fairgrounds of a local carnival, or along a given stretch of road. Free-Roaming ghosts are not bound by a single location. Some of them can move anywhere and everywhere, while others are treated as Free-Roaming but are actually Full-Roaming, it's just that the area they cover is so large as to make the designation of these beings as Full-Roaming not especially useful.
Then there are ones that defy these categories or at least make it difficult to figure out which one they belong to. Hitchhiker Ghosts and the rarer Hobo Ghosts are of this variety. For example, a Vanishing Hitchhiker that can and does appear anywhere along the length of the famous Route 66 (replaced in 1985 by the Interstate Highway System) is certainly not Full-Roaming the way that descriptor is normally used but it is bound to that particular road and can't leave it, so is it really Free-Roaming? Likewise, a Hobo Ghost that haunts the freight cars of a partiular train route might be attached to a given train, a long stretch of track, or the route itself and that can not only take them hundreds if not thousands of miles.
There are some unusual and exceptional examples of Roaming Ghosts such as the Violet Night and the Red Rider. These two are distinctive enough that we will see them being dicussed in Pott's later writings. The reason I bring them up is to point out that while both are described as Free-Roaming, they might actually be closer to the Wandering Ghosts Prof. Pott is interested in here.
Adam Dickstein
Ghostbusters Inc., International
Curious Case #2: Lantern Larry, The Spooksville Samaritan
"The Spooksville Triangle is the name given to the area where the states of Missouri, Kanasas, and Oklahoma meet. The region is roughly twenty-miles to a side, triangular as noted in the name, and the domain of more than a few wayward spirits if local legend is to be believed.
I was on a bus heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma from Springfield, Missouri when we passed through 'Spooksville' at 10:00 pm local time. I has writing notes at the time, no great revelation there, when the bus slowed and stopped rather abruptly. I assumed we were already at Joplin, Missouri but it seemed we were no where in particular. Everyone lurched forward a bit but there were no injuries as a result. The busriver opened the door and hurried out, leaving his passengers, myself included, understandably perplexed.
He returned with a pale, tired looking man maybe 25 years of age, decently dressed in a rural style with a well-made jacket that was perfect for the cold evening. In his right hand he carried an old railroad lantern, which was not lit at the time. He seemed thankful and a bit confused, searching his pockets slowly and deliberately. There was something both incredibly peculiar and painfully mundane about the fellow, though I am hard pressed even now to define what it was exactly. I stood from my seat, walked up to the front rather quickly and as if everything was alright. The man smiled warmly at me while the busdriver said, "Seems this fellow was out looking for someone...a neighbor you said? A mother with a missing child. He went looking down the road and got lost. I said I could take him to the next bus stop but...", before he could finish, the lost stranger piped in.
'Lantern Larry'
"Haven't find my money. I'm good for the ticket. I know I have it somewheres...". His voice was hoarse, no doubt from calling out in the night looking for his friend. I told him not to worry and paid for his ticket. "Gee, much obliged there mister. I'll pay you back I promise. Mister...?"
"Sebastian. Sebastian Pott. There is an empty seat next to be if you'd like."
"Well that is right kind of you Sebastian. Larry. Call me Larry."
We shook hands and walked down the isle to our seats. Within moments the bus started again and we were on our merry way. I offered Larry the window seat on the slim chance he might see the woman he was looking for or her child. He thanked me and looked, I am not sure how else to say this but, truly moved by the gesture.
We sat in silence for a while, him looking out the window and I reading my copy of Tobin's Spirit Guide. Suddenly the lights in the bus' interior flickered on and off for just a moment. This wasn't too unusual in this area I was later told. I noticed something very strange when it happened. Pitched into nearly complete darkness, I could barely see Larry but it was more than that...it was as if in the dark he was simply no longer there. At the same time, there was a glow from inside his lantern, a ball shaped flame of pinkish light. When the lights returned to normal, mere seconds later, the lantern was once again unlit.
"May I...may I ask, if it's not to personal a question of course, where you obtained that fine lantern?", I managed to say, feeling an uneasiness I was not accustomed to.
Larry nodded, his smile and demeanor unchanged. "I used to work for the railroad. Laid track, helped build the switches. Always keep the lantern handy." He looked out the window for a moment and then back to me. "You're a good man, Pott. Not everyone would pay a ticket for a stranger."
"I think everyone deserves a helping hand now and then. You are trying to help someone yourself and that's even more admirable. Paying for your ticket...it's just money. It's the least I could do." I put my book away in my shoulder bag and looked back at Larry once again. "I hope you find your neighbor and very much hope she finds her child."
"Thank you. Me too", he replied quietly and returned to staring out the window.
I awoke suddenly to realize the bus had stopped and the busdriver was speaking. People were moving about and I quickly assessed that I had dozed off and we'd reached the next train stop along our route. I looked beside me to see Larry had already departed. I stood up, eager to stretch my legs and the busdriver came down the isle towards me. He asked where the fellow with the lantern had gone.
"I beg your pardon? I just woke up. Did he not get off already?", I said while adjusting my glasses and my shirt.
"I didn't see him leave. I've been up front helping everyone getting off with luggage and such", said the driver while looking first at the seat Larry had occupied and then all around, as if there were many places to hide on a bus.
Busdriver George Carter
Gateway Transportation Co.,
Missouri, 1950
The two of us checked all the seats and then walked back up to the front. I asked if I might step out as I'd spent so much time sitting and of couse the driver said yes but we only had 15 minutes before departing the station. I did so, asking the other remaining passengers if they had seen Larry but no one had. While staring out into the difference, trying to make sense of what had transpired, I reached into my pocket and found money I hadn't recalled putting there. I took the bills and coins out and counted them up. The exact price of the bus ticket I'd purchased for my missing lantern carrying friend.
Some days later I found myself speaking with some railworkers in Oklahoma who told me a story; a number of years ago - the exact number changing with each recollection of the tale - a railroad man by the name of Lawrence Schmidt was having an affair with a young widow who lived not far from him. When the woman's child went missing, a daughter in some versions and a son in others, Schmidt went looking for them both and was struck by a car. It seems he was walking to far into the roadway at night when the light from the lantern he carried when out.
The 'Mother's Lantern', another urban legend connected to the Spooksville Triangle, may feature the same woman in Lantern Larry's story."
-Sebastian Pott, May 1950
AD
Barking Alien
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