Strange Experiences

They were driving the familiar route home on a clear moonlit night when something slightly weird happened. As Susan rounded a bend she had to break sharply. A cyclist had suddenly appeared in front of them. They couldn't understand why they hadn't noticed him before. It was as if he had appeared from nowhere. As Susan slowed down she and her daughter became a little unnerved by this mystery cyclist. Firstly, he didn't make any attempt to move to the side of the road to let them pass. Secondly, his appearance and his bike seemed oddly old fashioned. The bike looked heavy and cumbersome, not a bit like a modern mountain bike. The back wheel had a thick black mudguard without any light or reflector. Susan had the impression that there was a large basket on the front of the bike. It looked like the sort of contraption that somebody would once have used to deliver groceries. The cyclist was wearing a large cloth cap and a white coat which seemed to be quite dirty. He also appeared to be wearing bicycle clips, something that seems to be quite unusual these days.

Susan was driving very slowly just a couple of yards behind the bike but still the cyclist made no attempt to move. He seemed to be completely oblivious to their presence. She gave him a couple of beeps of the horn without any effect at all. After what seemed like an eternity they came to a wider stretch of road which enabled Susan to overtake him. As they passed, Susan and her daughter both turned their heads to get a look at this strange man on his strange bike and they saw......... nothing! He had vanished just as suddenly as he had appeared.
Susan and her daughter are convinced they saw a ghost that night and ever since they keep a camera at the ready whenever they drive down that particular stretch of road.

Another email I received concerns a young girl in a Victorian dress. A lady from Birmingham called Mary wrote to me about a regular ghostly sighting she had as a small child back in the 1960's.

Until she was about seven Mary lived in a Victorian terraced house. Her bedroom was at the back of the house and had a large window overlooking the garden. On many occasions she would wake up very early in the morning to see another girl in her bedroom, looking out of the window. She remembers this girl as being a little bit older than herself and wearing a blue dress with a large bow tied at the back. Mary thinks that this was the type of dress that a girl would have worn in Victorian times.

Sometimes the girl would be brushing her long hair. At other times she would be doing needlework. Mostly she would be sitting quietly looking out of the window. Mary would often ask her who she was and what was she looking at. The girl would turn to look at her and smile and Mary would quickly fall back to sleep.

Mary realises that the obvious explanation is that she simply dreamed this Victorian girl. However, she says that she saw the girl at least a hundred times and she always thought she was 'real'. The experience of seeing the girl was not a bit like a dream. Her family remember that she was always talking about the strange girl in her bedroom.

I think the mysterious vanishing cyclist is a good example of a ghostly 'recording'. For some inexplicable reason we sometimes see an image from the past which has somehow appeared or replayed in the present. The Victorian girl is a bit different. She seemed to be aware of herself and would respond to Mary by looking at her and smiling.

I love to collect these ghostly anecdotes so if you, or somebody you know, has had a strange experience I would love to hear it.