(A) Ghostly Little Girl & The Redheaded Phantom Of Route 44 | Archive Ep139

[00:00:02] On today's episode we'll be talking about nightmares, angels, urban legends, and much more. All coming up on this edition of Midweek Mysteries. As always, thank you for joining me and welcome. I am your host, Nic Ryan.

[00:00:37] Before we start, I'd like to say thank you to all of you for tuning in and supporting the podcast. And if you enjoy the show, please remember to subscribe, share, and review the podcast. This supports us by helping new listeners to discover the show. And if you'd

[00:00:50] like to support us even further by becoming a patron or by donating, please visit us at patreon.com slash paranormal mysteries or at buymeacoffee.com slash paranormal. These links and others can be found in the show notes. And if you've encountered the paranormal

[00:01:07] and would like to share your story, please email me at paranormalmysteriespodcast at gmail.com. All experiences, no matter how big or small, are always welcome. And with that in mind, our first Midweek Mystery comes to us from Quester. And Quester's stories

[00:01:25] are called The Fawn and the Red-Headed Phantom. Quester says, Hey Nic, thank you for your time to read my stories. I want to start with my first encounter of something rare and mythical that I witnessed as a child while vacationing in Fairhaven,

[00:01:41] Massachusetts. I was about 8 or 9, and I decided to take my bike out and across the bridge to a small convenience store to get some candy. The cottage my parents rented

[00:01:52] was set along a rather large river that eventually goes out to the ocean. As I made my way into the small store to get some more airheads, I noticed that it smelled like old musk. I'm

[00:02:02] sure this place has been here for a very long time, and it gave off a rather uncomfortable feeling. Soon after I left, I noticed on the side of the building that there was a

[00:02:12] small pathway leading out behind. Curious as I always have been, I decided to leave my bike and take a stroll down the mysterious path. Now this is when it got weird. The small pathway took me through what seemed to be an old riverbed that was semi-muddy,

[00:02:29] yet not so bad that I couldn't walk through. I made my way into the dried up riverbed, where I began to walk around sharp corners and through thick brush until I reached this

[00:02:39] one corner that made me stop dead in my tracks. Right in front of me, about 6 feet away, stood what seemed to be a deer, yet I could only see the backside of it. Also in the semi-muddy

[00:02:52] ground I could see hoof prints, reminding me that a deer had just passed by. What was very different about this deer is that I could see the backside of a man as well. His elbows

[00:03:03] and back of his head were visible to me, so in other words it was a half man, half deer. It moved around the riverbed quickly and I just froze for a second. I made my way

[00:03:15] to the curve that at once was turning around and saw nothing except for more hoof prints in the ground. I was pretty creeped out by what I just saw and ran back to my bike and

[00:03:25] then rode back to the cottage. I believe it was a fawn of mythical folklore and I will never forget that moment. My other encounter with the paranormal is that of the red-headed phantom of Route 44.

[00:03:40] This happened while my ex was driving, I in the passenger seat and my three children in the back. The story goes that if you're driving down Route 44 headed to Rehoboth from Seekonk at 11pm or 12am, the phantom will come out into the street, trying to make the

[00:03:56] driver swerve off the road. I've known about this myth for quite some time now but never believed it or encountered anything like it, until now. It was about 11.30pm and we had

[00:04:08] just left my mother's home in Rhode Island. The kids were all asleep in the back and just me and my ex left to chat about our night with my family. But right as we passed the

[00:04:18] sign saying Rehoboth, my ex slammed on the brakes, making me quickly look up from my cell phone. Just at that moment I looked over to my right to see a dark shadow run into the

[00:04:29] woods. I asked my ex what had happened and she replied, I saw a man standing very close to the side of the road and as I got closer he moved out more into the road so I slammed

[00:04:40] on my brakes. And that's when I looked up and saw something disappear into the woods. I personally didn't get a good look at it but I'm quite sure it was the red-headed phantom, stirring up some scares. The area I grew up in Massachusetts has a lot of paranormal

[00:04:56] activity and possibly a Bermuda Triangle which is called the Bridgewater Triangle. There are many stories that revolve around this theory and I know you have mentioned Pukwudgie before, which is why I am writing this all to you so that hopefully others like myself will

[00:05:11] share their paranormal stories. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and take care and be safe. Quester's experience with the red-headed phantom intrigued me and I found an article on Occult World that has to do with this bizarre entity. In the article says this,

[00:05:30] One of the most popular and most notorious phantoms in Massachusetts walks along a dark stretch of road in the town of Rehoboth. For more than three decades a red-headed man has been seen walking down Route 44 waiting to be picked up. At times he has been seen hitchhiking

[00:05:46] and other times he has been seen walking into the woods or in the middle of the road, not moving as a car passes through him. At least once he was seen outside the window

[00:05:55] of a car that was moving at more than 40 mph. Just who the man is is a mystery and several people have died along that stretch of road, including a man matching the phantom's description

[00:06:07] but no one can say for sure who the man is or when the haunting started. He is described as being more than 6 feet tall, well built and having red hair and a red beard. He is

[00:06:18] often seen wearing jeans or work pants but he is always described as wearing a red flannel shirt, sometimes tucked in and sometimes left out. Some travelers see him as well-kempt but he has also been seen with his characteristic red hair disheveled and dirty. People who

[00:06:36] come in contact with him can tell he is not human by his eyes which are often described as lifeless. Most of the encounters follow a similar pattern to this. Someone is driving along, usually alone, when they see a man in or along the roadside. They may either hit

[00:06:54] him or stop to pick him up. The hitchhiker will interact with the person and then eventually vanish before their eyes or will no longer be there when they turn to look. This is followed

[00:07:05] by some type of audio finale where he laughs, yells at them or taunts them. A woman once reported stopping to pick the man up and he disappeared as he went to grab the door handle.

[00:07:17] Her car battery then died and then she heard a man laughing at her although he could no longer be seen. Ten minutes later the car started but not before the woman broke down

[00:07:27] in fright. One man had been driving alone when he saw the red-headed man on the side of the road. He stopped and called out to the man who started to walk toward him and as he got closer the ghost slowly faded until he completely disappeared. Another witness

[00:07:42] had the hitchhiker appear in the backseat of his car through the rearview mirror. The radio started to scan the stations and then became so loud it shook the car. The phantom then disappeared and began to laugh on the radio. Local legend says that if three people

[00:07:59] are driving in the same car on Route 44, the red-headed hitchhiker will appear in the empty seat. Our next story of the night comes to us from Caitlin and Caitlin's story is called The Little Girl. Caitlin says, Hello, I'm a new

[00:08:17] listener and just want to say I love listening to these stories. It was my freshman year of college which was the year of 2011 when I was 18 or 19. I was attending Mercyhurst which is in Erie, Pennsylvania. There was always stories of how this campus was haunted

[00:08:34] but wasn't really ever known to be true. One night in one of the girls' townhouses on a stormy windy evening we wanted to play with the Ouija board. I've played with one in the

[00:08:44] past and also had some freaky things happen so this wasn't something new to me. As we were playing we were asking the basic questions. Is anyone here? How'd you die? Make a noise,

[00:08:57] So as we were playing it was all light and fun. Then all of a sudden I hear coming from the kitchen what sounds like a cat or dog's nails on the kitchen floor. The floor was

[00:09:07] that fake plastic tile stuff that you glue down and the sound went from soft to loud and running towards the room that we were in. I asked the girls who had their hands

[00:09:19] still on the planchette, Did you guys hear that? And they replied no. I shrugged it off and we kept playing. Maybe three minutes later in my right ear I hear the loudest

[00:09:29] growl, demonic sounding and it was so loud. It was as if its mouth had just covered my ear and yelling at the top of its lungs. As that happened I took my hand off the planchette

[00:09:40] to cover my ears and was yelling, What the F was that? The girls must have looked creeped out because then the girl across from me took my photo with her cell phone. Her eyes then got huge and she looked absolutely terrified and started showing everyone the picture she

[00:09:56] had just taken. I then said, Let me see, come on, what could be so scary? In this picture you can see me looking at her and then directly behind my right shoulder was a little girl

[00:10:08] in a white dress. You could see her facial features but she had huge black eyes. I started feeling super uneasy. I stood up and just left. I didn't know how to feel after hearing

[00:10:20] all those things and then having this little girl standing behind me and when doing this I never said goodbye with the Ouija board and planchette. As the years went on this little

[00:10:30] girl has been with me. I can explain more if you'd like to hear more about her and my other experiences with the paranormal. Needless to say after this I have yet to ever touch

[00:10:40] a Ouija board and I'm now 28 years old. Thank you for listening and stay safe. Our next story of the night comes to us from Anonymous. Anonymous' story is called, Ghost or Angel? You tell

[00:10:58] me. Anonymous says, Around the time that Scream 4 came out for order on demand, I was at my apartment and I invited some friends over to watch Scream 4. For privacy reasons I'll rename everyone. There was Jen, Tam, Ari, and me. I ordered the movie and we all watched

[00:11:17] it, along with eating junk food such as Doritos. After the movie had ended we all sat where we had been sitting during the movie. I was sitting on my bed talking to Tam and Tam was

[00:11:29] next to me on the couch which was right next to the bed. On the other end of the couch was Ari and she was blankly staring at the on demand screen in some deep state of thought.

[00:11:40] Now Jen and Tam were sisters, not that that's important, but Tam was drawing or coloring on the floor by the wall and we were all basically in a horizontal line more or less

[00:11:49] in the room. In mid conversation with Jen, I hear this sound and the sound is what I can only describe as papers flying in the wind, like a packet of papers stapled and an air conditioner blowing them and a mixture of really big wings flapping. Now this all

[00:12:05] happened really fast but the sound was coming from the kitchen. The kitchen entrance and the front door were facing each other across the living room so we all looked in that direction and this white thing flew across my living room and towards the front door. It was about

[00:12:19] the size of maybe a flat screen TV that was sideways. None of us got too good of a look but the two people closest to it, which were Jen and Ari, said that they saw a halo over

[00:12:30] what would have been its head. Now after we saw all this, Jen said, okay I'm getting the hell out of here and ran for the front door and we all followed. We then talked about

[00:12:41] what we saw and agreed to never say a word. We were all freaked out and to this day we have no idea what it was. I did tell my mom about it and she mentioned an urban legend

[00:12:52] in my town named The White Lady. I've never had the balls to research it but it does keep me believing in some supernatural force as we all saw it with our own eyes. Our next listener story comes to us from Corey and Corey's story is called The Nightmare.

[00:13:12] Corey says Dear Nick, I discovered your podcast in recent months. I love hearing the stories you share and the experiences that others have had and I've always had a rather large interest in the paranormal. Let me preface my story by saying that I'm a paramedic on

[00:13:28] an ambulance in a smaller Southern California town and my story takes place in the winter months of 2019. At the time I was on a 24 hour shift with my partner who shared a similar

[00:13:39] obsession with the paranormal. As I recall it was a night like any other and my partner and I were in our station when the phone began to ring. It was dispatch advising my partner

[00:13:50] and I that we were being attached to a code 3. We proceeded to the ambulance as we would have with any other call. In the ambulance we were advised of the call being a cardiac respiratory arrest. We responded with lights and sirens and arrived on scene in a timely

[00:14:05] manner. Fire had arrived on scene and the call proceeded as any other full arrest. Due to legal reasons I'm only able to share limited details but I can share that the patient was

[00:14:16] a woman in her late 70s and one thing that always stands out in my mind is that she had been wearing a thick, tan, knitted cardigan that was very coarse and rough to the touch.

[00:14:27] Please note this as it will be referred to later in the story. Anyway, the call proceeded and we ended up transporting the patient, code 3, to the closest emergency room. Once at our destination we handed the patient over to emergency department staff and following

[00:14:42] completion of the call, as well as the necessary cleaning and restock, we returned to our station. Due to the late hour now my partner and I decided to lay down and attempt to sleep. Our station

[00:14:55] consisted of a large common area, which included the kitchen, dining and relaxation area where there were two recliners and a couch. One thing that always made me feel uneasy in the station was that when all the lights were off in the common area there was an emergency

[00:15:10] exit light that would give the entire room an ominous red glow. Anyway, I would sleep on the couch due to the beds at work no longer agreeing with my aging back. I would always

[00:15:22] pull the recliner closest to the couch so I could use the arm of the recliner as a pillow. At some point I must have fallen asleep and as I woke up into the nightmare I noted

[00:15:32] that the arm of the recliner seemed to be off for some reason. I then realized that the texture of the fabric seemed off. As my eyes began to adjust, I realized that it was

[00:15:43] once the arm of the recliner was now tan in color and this is when I noticed that the fabric felt very abrasive on my skin and face. At this point, my eyes were nearly fully

[00:15:54] adjusted to my poorly illuminated surroundings and I began slowly scanning up the arm of the recliner towards the head. This was when I realized that the arm extended up to a shoulder

[00:16:06] and a neck. Above the neck was the face of the patient that we had run on earlier in the evening. As I recall staring at her face, still terrified at the sight before me, I

[00:16:17] realized that she was crying. She uttered not even a single word. The only sounds that escaped her mouth were nearly silent whimpers as she continued to cry. This is when I, under

[00:16:28] no power of my own, began to scan down her arm closest to me. After what felt like an eternity I reached her hand. Her hand was being gently grasped by two white gloved hands.

[00:16:41] As I now looked slowly upon the unknown person, I noticed that he, as I would later discover, was wearing a nicely tailored suit. His suit seemed to be a black that my mind wasn't

[00:16:52] able to process. I did note that the suit did not contain the same red hue that everything else in the room possessed. As my eyes continued to ascend toward his face and I first took

[00:17:04] note of his mouth, which was stretched into a wide smile. His smile was wider than his narrow face looked capable of creating, and his teeth came to a fine, razor sharp point. Immediately as I reached his eyes, in the place of traditional eyes, he had two stretched

[00:17:21] stars, which I now realized stretched out into all directions from their point of origin. Now this is the portion of the story that will stay with me for the rest of my life. At this point, the unknown starry-eyed man looked at me and pulled one of his gloved

[00:17:38] hands away from the woman's and stared directly into my eyes. He simply uttered, Shhh, you're hurting her. I was then startled awake as the station phone began ringing advising my partner and I that

[00:17:53] we had another call. This new call ended up being a cancel, and I recall explaining the details of what I had just experienced to my partner on the drive back to the station.

[00:18:04] I will never forget my partner listening to me in silence as I watched all of the hair on his arm stand up. The most bothersome fact about this story is that later on in the evening

[00:18:14] my partner and I transported to the same facility, which we had originally transported to earlier in the evening, where I was advised that our first patient, the woman from my dream, had sadly passed away.

[00:18:28] I still couldn't even begin to tell you why I had the experience that I did that night. All I do know is that it is something that I will carry with me forever, and I always

[00:18:37] have the hair on the back of my neck stand on end when revisiting the dream in my memories. I hope that my story makes it into the podcast, and perhaps someone may have some insight into my dream. I can't wait to listen to more stories on the podcast.

[00:18:54] Thank you. Corey Our last story of the night comes to us from Carl, and Carl's story is called My Unusual Dream. Carl says, I'm from Michigan just like you said you were in one of your early podcasts. I've been listening

[00:19:12] to your podcast at work for the last month since I found it and I've been interested in the paranormal for most of my life. Unfortunately, there have been very few instances of these

[00:19:21] happening to me, but the one I want to tell you about is something that happened to me about eight or nine years ago. I was in my bed sleeping in my parents' house when I was awoken by my phone ringing.

[00:19:34] I answered it, hearing my mother asking me if she knew what kind of pie my father would I answered that I didn't know, and then I remembered that my phone shouldn't have rung because I had shut it off before I went to sleep.

[00:19:47] I then for some reason asked who it was on the other end of the line, and that was when I think I heard a little girl's voice say, Remember me. And after that, I woke up.

[00:19:59] The only other thing I can say is that I usually can control my dreams and don't remember them. This is one of the few that I didn't have control of, but I still remember it to this day.

[00:20:10] I don't really know what you would classify it as because I don't live with my parents now. It couldn't be something from the future, and as far as I know, I've never had any past-life memories.

[00:20:24] As tonight's edition of Midweek Mysteries comes to an end, I'd like to thank all of you for tuning in. And a special thank you goes out to Quester, Kaitlyn, Anonymous, Corey, and Carl for sharing their experiences.

[00:20:39] If you've witnessed something that you can't explain, please contact me at paranormalmysteriespodcast at gmail dot com, or visit us at paranormalmysteriespodcast dot com and click on the Tell Your Story link. All of our contact information can be found in the show notes.

[00:20:56] Until next time, I hope you all have a safe and healthy rest of the week, and we'll see you back here on Friday with our next episode. From all of us at Paranormal Mysteries, thank you for listening, and remember... Don't wait for the unknown to come to you.

[00:21:12] Get out there and find it.