Faceless Female Ghosts Haunting The UK
By James Donahue
The apparition that has been spooking the motorists on the A22 at the Caterham Bypass near Croydon, in the UK, is about as strange as they come. The ghoulish figure is seen by drivers in the early hours of the day, walking or running across the highway in front of oncoming cars. She is clearly female, wearing ripped tights and a mini-skirt. What is scary is that the person has no features on her face. The face is blank.
The apparition has been reported to local police in that same area by drivers since about 1962, authorities say. One recent sighting sparked an intense police search, complete with dogs and helicopter, because the driver was certain a woman was in distress and possibly wandering lost in a nearby wood. They said the dogs failed to find a scent and the helicopter personnel found nothing moving in the area. Whatever the drivers saw, it apparently was not a living human. “It is all very eerie,” one police officer said.
One recent sighting was shared by three men riding together at 2:30 a.m. one recent April day. The driver, a 36-year-old man, said they all saw what appeared to be a young girl running across the road in front of the vehicle. “We called the police and they said somebody else also had reported it,” he said.
He described the girl as wearing black boots, a dark top and a beige skirt. Thinking the girl might be in some kind of trouble at that strange hour of the day, in such a deserted area, he said they turned around at the first overpass and went back. He said the girl was still there. “She was just walking across the road. All three of us saw her.” That was when they looked at her more closely and saw that she had no features on her face. “It made the hairs stand out on the top of my neck,” he said. “It really freaked us out.”
Then there was a story from a barkeep in Barnsley who investigated what he thought was a burglary of his business and came face to face with the “grotesquely disfigured apparition of an elderly woman dressed all in ghostly white,” a news report said. “When she turned to look at him he saw half her face was missing, from her cheekbone down to her jaw.”
Roger Froggatt, the business owner, said he was summoned to his bar at about 1:30 AM, because something tripped a heat-seeking alarm. When he entered the bar, he said he discovered that three plasma television screens in the bar had switched themselves on and he heard toilets in the restrooms flushing.
He said it was in the toilets that he was confronted by the ghostly creature. “I will never forget what I saw,” Froggatt said. “All three plasma television screens were switched on. My wife went to switch them off and I checked the toilets. When I went into the ladies I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was a figure of what I believe was a woman with no face and silvery grey hair, dressed in a white gown. I stood there for about four or five seconds then fled in terror. I ran out of there, I was that shaken. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even speak to the police when they arrived.”
Police said Froggatt’s wife, Kathryn, led police into the women’s restroom and there they found the toilets flushing by themselves, over and over again, as if some invisible hand was on the handles. The toilets do not flush automatically. But police said nobody was there.
Older residents of the area believe the Froggatts were confronted by the ghost of a former barmaid who died years earlier at the pub. The Froggatts, who live in an apartment on the second floor, asked a priest to exorcise the building.
By James Donahue
The apparition that has been spooking the motorists on the A22 at the Caterham Bypass near Croydon, in the UK, is about as strange as they come. The ghoulish figure is seen by drivers in the early hours of the day, walking or running across the highway in front of oncoming cars. She is clearly female, wearing ripped tights and a mini-skirt. What is scary is that the person has no features on her face. The face is blank.
The apparition has been reported to local police in that same area by drivers since about 1962, authorities say. One recent sighting sparked an intense police search, complete with dogs and helicopter, because the driver was certain a woman was in distress and possibly wandering lost in a nearby wood. They said the dogs failed to find a scent and the helicopter personnel found nothing moving in the area. Whatever the drivers saw, it apparently was not a living human. “It is all very eerie,” one police officer said.
One recent sighting was shared by three men riding together at 2:30 a.m. one recent April day. The driver, a 36-year-old man, said they all saw what appeared to be a young girl running across the road in front of the vehicle. “We called the police and they said somebody else also had reported it,” he said.
He described the girl as wearing black boots, a dark top and a beige skirt. Thinking the girl might be in some kind of trouble at that strange hour of the day, in such a deserted area, he said they turned around at the first overpass and went back. He said the girl was still there. “She was just walking across the road. All three of us saw her.” That was when they looked at her more closely and saw that she had no features on her face. “It made the hairs stand out on the top of my neck,” he said. “It really freaked us out.”
Then there was a story from a barkeep in Barnsley who investigated what he thought was a burglary of his business and came face to face with the “grotesquely disfigured apparition of an elderly woman dressed all in ghostly white,” a news report said. “When she turned to look at him he saw half her face was missing, from her cheekbone down to her jaw.”
Roger Froggatt, the business owner, said he was summoned to his bar at about 1:30 AM, because something tripped a heat-seeking alarm. When he entered the bar, he said he discovered that three plasma television screens in the bar had switched themselves on and he heard toilets in the restrooms flushing.
He said it was in the toilets that he was confronted by the ghostly creature. “I will never forget what I saw,” Froggatt said. “All three plasma television screens were switched on. My wife went to switch them off and I checked the toilets. When I went into the ladies I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was a figure of what I believe was a woman with no face and silvery grey hair, dressed in a white gown. I stood there for about four or five seconds then fled in terror. I ran out of there, I was that shaken. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even speak to the police when they arrived.”
Police said Froggatt’s wife, Kathryn, led police into the women’s restroom and there they found the toilets flushing by themselves, over and over again, as if some invisible hand was on the handles. The toilets do not flush automatically. But police said nobody was there.
Older residents of the area believe the Froggatts were confronted by the ghost of a former barmaid who died years earlier at the pub. The Froggatts, who live in an apartment on the second floor, asked a priest to exorcise the building.