Spring 1962. Two brothers age 22 and 14 were returning home following a short holiday spent touring around Scotland. They were driving through the Scottish borders and stopped in Dumfries for more petrol before carrying on their journey. The next 15 miles of their trip, on the A75 between Dumfries and Annan were to prove to be a car ride they’d never forget.
It was almost midnight and looked like a clear road ahead of them. Suddenly out of nowhere, the apparition of what seemed to be an over-size hen appeared and flew towards them, vanishing just before it should have crashed into the windshield. The elder brother swerved the car to avoid hitting the spectre. The two boys were momentarily shaken, but it was just the beginning.
The figure of an elderly woman zipping madly towards the car, waving her arms around appeared next. Like the previous apparition, she too vanished just prior to impact. A cavalcade of weird spectres unexpectedly bombarded the two shocked boys in the car after this, making the car swerve all over the road to avoid collision. They saw amongst other things an old man with long hair looking like he was screaming, goats, cats and wild looking dogs.
The elder brother at first thought he was hallucinating, but soon realised he wasn’t when he saw the terrified figure of his little brother hunched up in the front passenger seat. Both noticed a dramatic temperature drop inside the car, although they were sweating profusely.
The older boy’s hands seemed to him to be very heavy and he began having difficulty steering the car. He recalled afterwards that it seemed he and his brother were suffocating and opened the window to get some air. Outside was bitingly cold and there came the sound of high-pitched laughter and cackling. The elder brother stopped the car, afraid he was about to crash.
As soon as the car came to a halt, it was bounced powerfully up and down on the road and rocked forcefully from side to side making both boys feel light-headed. Feeling sick, the older brother threw open the car door and jumped outside. The violence stopped and everything seemed to be peaceful and lonely. However as soon as he got back in the car, the quaking restarted, along with the laughter. A strong wind seemed to blow, along with the impression of fists hitting the car all over.
The older boy decided to carry on and drove slowly along the road, the previous bizarre apparitions starting up and eerie noise coming from all around. It was as if the manifestations were goading the eldest brother into running them over. His hands and arms were full of unbearable pain, but he managed to drive straight ahead without swerving.
Soon, the boys noticed a small light ahead and were relieved to see it was from the tail of a large furniture van. They’d no sooner relaxed than they realised they were nearing the van too quickly and saw there was going to be a crash. The elder brother discovered to his alarm that he couldn’t avoid it and that his foot was glued to the accelerator. He yelled for his younger brother to get ready for a collision. They headed towards the van faster and faster and were shocked when it vanished completely.
Exhausted, they slowly drove ahead until the car was going at a crawl. The wind and sound had vanished and they were reaching Annan, the journey taking almost thirty minutes.
It was later discovered that there were rumours of witchcraft being practiced in the area in previous years and a ghostly furniture van had often been witnessed along the neighborhood. Neither of the boys had experienced the paranormal before, nor had the rest of their family. It was noted that the younger boy, being an adolescent at the time of the incident, might have had a subconscious link to what happened that night.
Source – The Gazetteer Of Scottish Ghosts – Peter Underwood, 1973/74.
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