0:10

Tales of haunted roads and vanishing

0:13

hitchhikers are among the more ubiquitous

0:16

of ghost story tropes to be found

0:18

throughout the world. In

0:21

a classic sense, the notion might

0:23

bring to mind Washington Irving's

0:25

headless horsemen from his gothic

0:27

and satirical masterpiece The Legend

0:30

of Sleepy Hollow, and

0:33

although not a ghost in the regular sense,

0:35

you'd be hard pushed to find a more iconic

0:38

incarnation of the mysterious roadside

0:41

wanderer than the eponymous hitchhiker

0:44

from HBO's Darkened Trashy

0:46

anthology series. The

0:49

prevalence of such stories has been

0:51

clearly aided by the growth of the automobile

0:54

industry and the frequency with

0:56

which people might, as a result, find

0:58

themselves driving alone through eerie

1:01

nights on deserted roads, miles

1:04

from familiar surroundings, in

1:06

other words, the perfect environment

1:09

for a spectral encounter. And

1:13

it is this the basic utility

1:15

of the humble road, or any

1:18

other thoroughfare for that matter, that

1:20

for me makes it in many ways the

1:22

most apt location for a haunting.

1:26

Not only is the path a metaphor with

1:28

multiple applications, but also

1:30

literally, it is the pathway's basic

1:33

function to deliver you from one

1:35

place to another, a journey

1:37

that often involves traveling through the unfamiliar

1:41

places rarely experienced only

1:44

glimpsed in passing, and often

1:46

at speed from inside the relative

1:48

comfort of a moving vehicle. On

1:53

the fifteenth of May two thousand and nine,

1:55

in London, work began on

1:57

a major transport project to construct

2:00

to high speed rail link traveling east

2:02

and west through the heart of the city. In

2:06

March two thirteen, construction

2:08

workers tunneling deep below the ground

2:11

found the remains of twenty five skeletons

2:14

in a small five meter wide shaft.

2:17

The remains, found to be almost seven

2:19

hundred years old, were later discovered

2:22

to have been victims of the Black Death, a

2:25

plague that swept through Europe in the

2:27

fourteenth century.

2:29

The discovery is one of many extraordinary

2:32

archeological finds uncovered

2:34

by excavations for the New Line,

2:37

including a number of similar

2:39

burial sites with some dating as

2:41

far back as seven thousand to BC, as

2:44

well as the discovery of over ten thousand

2:46

artifacts spanning across

2:48

thirty different sites throughout the city.

2:53

Not only does the revelation of the burial site

2:55

bring to mind Nigel Neels wonderful

2:58

Sci Fi Cereal, Quatermat and

3:00

the Pit. But it also serves as

3:02

a gruesome reminder of those that

3:04

have walked the paths before, and

3:07

perhaps in some ways still do. It

3:11

certainly begs the question that, even

3:13

when traveling the most seemingly deserted

3:15

of roads, are we ever truly

3:18

alone? You're

3:21

listening to Unexplained and I'm

3:24

Richard McClean smith. The

3:38

A six one six is a road that

3:41

begins just to the north of the town of

3:43

Newark on Trent in the county

3:45

of Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands.

3:49

Tracing a path northwest through the

3:51

country. The road bends round

3:53

Sherwood Forest, crossing the border

3:55

into Derbyshire at the town of Cresswell,

3:57

before disappearing into the concrete

4:00

vortex of the M one motorway,

4:04

and then, as if by some mysterious

4:07

process of refractive urban planning,

4:10

it appears again some fifty miles

4:12

further up, now in

4:15

Yorkshire, sprouting westward from

4:17

junction thirty five just above

4:19

the city of Sheffield. Prior

4:22

to nineteen eighty eight, the road

4:24

continued on through the town of Stocksbridge

4:27

at the northern fringe of the Peak District,

4:30

before eventually coming to an end at

4:32

the city of Huddersfield. In

4:35

nineteen eighty seven. However, building

4:38

began on a small stretch of the road that

4:40

would later become known as the Stocksbridge

4:42

Bypass, a stretch

4:45

of road now generally regarded

4:47

as one of the most haunted in the whole

4:50

of the UK. The

4:53

years since the construction of the bypass have

4:55

seen a highly unusual amount of strange

4:58

sightings and sounds that

5:00

remained to this day unexplained.

5:08

It began on a warm September

5:11

evening in nineteen eighty seven when

5:13

two security guards, Stephen

5:15

Brooks and David Goldthorpe, were

5:18

patrolling the building site of the unfinished

5:20

bypass. The men

5:23

employed by the reputable ratherum based

5:25

firm Constant Securities, were

5:27

both well experienced and would often

5:30

work the night shift together. Just

5:33

to the south of the bypass lay the

5:35

white, low rise hangars and dusty

5:37

roads of the Stocksbridge Steelworks, and

5:40

to the north, stretching for miles

5:42

nothing but open fields and farm

5:45

land. It

5:47

is hard to resist the strange energy of

5:49

such places. The concrete

5:51

byway separate from the town

5:54

but not fully removed, forming

5:56

an unnatural threshold between

5:58

the urban and the pastoral. It

6:02

is in such locations we often find

6:04

those most peculiar of places, the

6:07

siding, unfrequented,

6:09

almost forbidden, pockets of land

6:12

where wild flowers and grass compete

6:15

with the cast off detritus of modern

6:17

life. Running

6:19

almost parallel to the road was

6:22

the usual chain of electricity pylons,

6:25

their spindly metal arms and drooping

6:28

cables, just visible in the moonlight

6:30

as they stretched off towards the dark moors

6:33

of the Peak District. Cruising

6:36

round the site in their van, on the night

6:38

of Tuesday eighth, Stephen

6:40

and David were nearing the newly constructed

6:42

p Roid Bridge when they spotted

6:44

something peculiar. It

6:47

was Stephen who noticed it first, some

6:50

sort of movement at the base of a pylon

6:53

near to the approach road to the bridge. As

6:56

they got closer, Stephen couldn't

6:59

quite believe what he was seeing. The

7:02

movement appeared to be a group of young

7:04

children playing and dancing at

7:07

the base of the pylon. It

7:09

was odd, to say the least. Not

7:11

only had it gone past midnight, but

7:14

there were no houses anywhere nearby.

7:17

And then David noticed

7:19

something strange about the children's clothes,

7:23

how old fashioned they were, but

7:26

before they could get a closer look, the

7:28

children completely vanished. The

7:32

two guards immediately pulled up and

7:35

got out of the van. More

7:37

than a little unsettled, they made their

7:39

way to where the children had been dancing

7:41

only moments before, but

7:43

found no footprints or any

7:46

other sign that anyone had been

7:48

there at all, and all

7:50

around the air was still

7:53

save for the quiet hum of the electricity

7:56

pylon overhead. Confused,

8:00

the men returned to the van and continued

8:02

their patrol, but

8:04

no sooner had they reached the bottom of the bridge,

8:07

Stephen caught sight of something else

8:10

peculiar. Look

8:12

there, he said, pointing

8:14

to the top of the bridge. What

8:17

on earth is that? David

8:20

pulled up the van and looked out at the windscreen.

8:23

It appeared to be the silhouette of a

8:25

man wearing a hooded cloak.

8:29

Together they called out to the man to

8:31

leave the site, but the figure

8:34

did not reply and remained

8:36

frozen on the bridge. Assuming

8:40

they were the victims of a practical joke, Stephen

8:43

got out of the van, keeping an eye

8:45

on the figure as David drove the van

8:47

to the opposite side of the bridge and

8:50

switched the lights on. Too full beam

8:54

Stephen watched in horror from the other

8:56

side as the light shone

8:58

straight through the body the figure. But

9:02

what was more terrifying was that

9:04

whatever it was appeared

9:06

to be missing its head. Moments

9:09

later, the figure disappeared.

9:15

Constant security director Mike Lee

9:18

had been sound asleep when he received a

9:20

panicked call at four thirty am

9:23

requesting he head out immediately to

9:25

the building site. When

9:27

he arrived, he found both Stephen

9:30

and David waiting for him in

9:32

a state of abject fear.

9:35

The guards proceeded to describe to Mike

9:38

what they had seen that night, and

9:40

from the tone of their voices, it was

9:42

clear to Mike that this was no joke.

9:46

Mike knew the men as two down

9:49

to earth, tough South Yorkshire

9:51

lads, a rugby player and

9:53

weightlifter, but now

9:56

what he saw in front of him were two

9:58

frightened boys shaking

10:00

with shock, with Stephen even

10:02

being reduced to tears as he recounted

10:05

the knight's events. Are

10:10

you always taking care of your family?

10:12

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forward slash Unexplained podcast today

11:07

to get started. That's t e

11:10

ladoc dot com

11:12

slash Unexplained podcast. The

11:19

following afternoon, a call came

11:21

in to nearby Deep Car Police

11:23

Station. Police Constable

11:26

Dick Ellis answered the phone to find

11:28

a trembling voice on the other end of

11:30

the line. It was Stephen

11:33

calling from home, desperate

11:35

for any kind of help, but

11:38

there was little that Pcllis could do

11:41

other than to suggest that Stephen

11:43

tried contacting his local church, and

11:47

so it was with some surprise that

11:49

the next day Dick received another

11:51

phone call about the same matter, only

11:54

this time it was from a priest. He

11:58

said that he was calling on behalf of two men

12:01

security guards from the Stocksbridge Bypass

12:03

construction site. He

12:06

explained that they had come to see him

12:08

in a state of deep distress. The

12:11

men had requested an exorcism of

12:13

the road, worried that perhaps

12:16

a graveyard had been disturbed in the

12:18

construction of it. So

12:21

convinced of the men's stories, or

12:23

at the very least convinced of their fear,

12:26

the priest asked PC Ellis if

12:28

he could investigate the site before he

12:30

started making any cause to the Vatican.

12:34

The following day, on the evening of Friday,

12:36

September the eleventh, PC Dick

12:39

Ellis and Special Constable John

12:41

beat got into their regulation

12:43

Fiat Panda patrol car and made

12:45

their way towards the construction site.

12:50

Before long, they passed the quiet

12:52

and deserted steelworks on the edge of town

12:55

and pulled into the building site just

12:57

at the foot of Proid Bridge. A

13:02

short time later, the men were

13:04

sat with the engine and lights turned

13:06

off, admiring the bright full

13:08

moon hanging in the sky above them,

13:10

while the radio crackled intermittently

13:13

in the background. The

13:19

men agreed to give it a few more minutes

13:22

before calling it a night and heading back

13:24

to the station. But

13:27

then something caught the eye of

13:29

pc Ellis. Turn

13:32

off the radio, he said to John, what

13:35

is that up there on the

13:37

bridge. John

13:40

could see it too, some

13:42

sort of shadow moving about

13:44

in front of a set of large palletts.

13:48

John tried flashing the car lights

13:50

to get a better sense of it, but

13:53

the angle wasn't quite right. Stay

13:56

here, said Dick, as he got out of the

13:59

car made his way over to the

14:01

boxes to investigate. Despite

14:05

all his experience and training, a

14:07

peculiar feeling had begun to settle

14:09

over PC Ellis, a feeling

14:11

of dread that seemed to wrap itself

14:14

around him, tightening as

14:16

he drew nearer to the pallets. And

14:19

there it was again, the shadow,

14:21

moving quickly in front of him.

14:24

He called out, but there was no reply. Slowly

14:29

he continued forward until

14:31

finally he could see it clearly, just

14:35

a loose sheet of polythene

14:37

partially ripped from the pallet and flapping

14:39

about in the wind. With

14:43

some relief, Ellis returned to the

14:45

vehicle and relayed the news to John.

14:48

The two men couldn't help but laugh and

14:51

decided to call it a night. But

14:54

something wasn't quite right. Despite

14:57

uncovering the true cause of the mysterio

15:00

his figure on the bridge, Ellis

15:02

couldn't quite shake that lingering feeling

15:05

of dread. Now

15:07

back in the car, it seemed to

15:09

be intensifying. It

15:11

wasn't a fear as such, but more

15:14

of a sudden sense of impending

15:16

and inevitable doom.

15:20

Ellis wound down the window to get

15:22

a little air and looked

15:24

out again across the deserted site,

15:27

and then Ellis noticed

15:30

something else. Despite

15:32

the warmth of the night, the temperature

15:34

in the car had dropped dramatically,

15:39

and now Ellis had the distinct,

15:42

unmistakable feeling that he

15:44

was being watched. But

15:47

what was really terrifying was

15:50

the dark shape that had just then

15:52

appeared standing right outside

15:54

his open window. Ellis

15:57

froze and slowly turned his

15:59

head head to face the figure, but

16:02

when he looked out of the window, it

16:05

had gone. John

16:08

screamed as there now

16:10

standing on John's side of the car was

16:13

the same shadowy figure, but

16:15

this time John could see it clearly.

16:19

At first he saw an old fashioned

16:21

waistcoat and some sort of cravat,

16:24

and then he lifted his eyes for

16:26

a moment he caught a glimpse of

16:28

a face, its blank eyes

16:31

staring directly at him, before

16:33

it vanished again. The

16:36

men leapt immediately from the vehicle,

16:39

convinced someone was messing with

16:41

them, But as they looked

16:43

frantically around the car, there

16:45

was little to be seen save for the

16:47

soft yellow lights of nearby Stocksbridge

16:50

and the bright full moon hanging

16:53

high above them in the sky. After

16:56

a quick search of the surrounding bankside,

16:59

the pair, now deeply rattled, returned

17:02

to the car to mount a proper search of the area.

17:06

Unable to find any one, they returned

17:08

to the bottom of the bridge, pulled

17:10

up the car and attempted to radio

17:12

back to base, only

17:14

the radio wouldn't turn

17:16

on. Suddenly,

17:20

two loud bangs rang out from the back

17:22

of the car, as if something

17:24

was pounding on the roof with all its might.

17:28

John, now shaking, turned

17:30

the ignition, but the engine refused

17:33

to start. The thumps

17:35

came again. John

17:39

hurriedly tried the key once more, and

17:41

this time the engine sputtered into

17:43

life. He shifted the car

17:45

into gear, turned it around and

17:48

sped off back to the safety of

17:50

Stocksbridge. The

17:57

following day, both men, despite

18:00

the obvious potential for ridicule, reluctantly

18:03

reported their accounts of the previous

18:05

night, with Ellis putting the

18:07

incident down to inexplicable

18:10

phenomena. Unsurprisingly,

18:13

the two officers were roundly mocked by

18:15

many of their colleagues, and the

18:17

story inevitably found its way

18:19

to the local paper, The Sheffield

18:21

Evening Star. Incredibly,

18:25

as writer Dave Clark noted having

18:27

investigated the story years later, both

18:30

the officers stuck rigidly to their

18:32

story, with Ellis maintaining

18:35

there was definitely something there, but

18:38

I can't explain it. I might

18:40

have dismissed it as my imagination, but

18:42

my partner saw it and had the

18:45

identical eerie feeling at the same time.

18:48

It was definitely unnerving, and

18:50

it wasn't a publicity stunt, as was

18:52

claimed at the time. We

18:54

don't do that sort of thing in the police

18:57

force. As

19:00

for the security guards, Stephen Brooks

19:02

and David Goldthorpe, neither

19:05

stepped foot on the site again, and

19:07

one of the men is believed to have since moved

19:09

to Canada partly due to the stress

19:12

caused by the event, and

19:15

it was only the beginning. Soon

19:18

many more sightings and strange occurrences

19:20

would come to light. John

19:23

Holmes, a lorry driver from Hillsborough,

19:26

reported pulling into a depot close to

19:28

the bypass late one evening when

19:30

he became aware of childish voices.

19:34

After a moment, he realized they

19:36

were singing, but there was no sign

19:38

of children anywhere. The

19:40

voices seemed to be emanating from

19:42

a nearby wood. Sometime

19:46

later in the autumn of that year, Graham

19:49

Brooke and his fourteen year old son Nigel

19:51

were running close to the bypass construction

19:54

site when they too saw something

19:56

strange. Graham,

19:58

a seasoned runner training for the London

20:00

Marathon, had a regular route

20:03

running from his home in northwest of Sheffield

20:06

up to the village of Wortley, located

20:08

close to where the bypass would eventually

20:10

be built. After

20:12

roughly forty five minutes of running, with

20:15

dusk quickly descending, Graham,

20:17

who was a short distance ahead of his son, was

20:20

approaching a lay by on his way into

20:22

the village when he caught sight of something

20:25

unusual. It was the

20:27

figure of a man who appeared to be walking

20:29

with his back towards the oncoming traffic.

20:33

When Nigel finally caught up with his dad,

20:35

he too saw the reckless man wandering

20:38

along the road. The

20:40

figure, who was no more than fifty yards away,

20:43

appeared to be dressed in some sort of cloak

20:45

with a dark brown hood. They

20:48

noticed too that it was dragging some

20:50

kind of bag attached to a chain

20:52

along the ground. But

20:55

what was most peculiar was that

20:57

the legs of the figure looked as though

20:59

there were sunk into the road. As

21:03

they stared in disbelief, they

21:05

moved along the road to get a look at the

21:07

man's face. It

21:09

seemed to be covered in soot, with

21:11

two dark sockets where the eyes

21:13

should be. The

21:16

figure drew nearer and nearer until

21:18

a huge lorry swept past, right

21:20

into the path of the man. As

21:23

the lorry continued down the road, the

21:25

figure had completely disappeared.

21:30

The bypass would eventually be opened

21:32

the following year, on Friday

21:34

the thirteenth in May of nineteen

21:37

eighty eight, and the

21:39

sightings would keep coming. In

21:42

July nineteen ninety, Judy

21:44

Simpson and her husband David were

21:47

driving close to the village of Wartley alongside

21:49

the bypass when they both caught

21:51

sight of someone jogging in the middle

21:53

of the field to the left of the road, but

21:56

looking closer. Although the jogger

21:59

had the shape of a David

22:01

and Judy realized with amusement

22:03

that the figure appeared to be more like an

22:05

outline of a person. What's

22:09

more, it was moving about three

22:11

feet above the ground. Suddenly,

22:14

the figure leapt from the field over

22:17

an embankment up ahead and landed

22:19

straight in the middle of the road. Judy

22:23

and David both braced for an impact,

22:25

but there was nothing. It

22:28

was as if the figure had melted into

22:30

the vehicle. The car

22:32

skidded to a halt, clambering

22:34

out to search for whatever it was that they

22:37

hit, there was nothing to be

22:39

seen. Seven

22:43

years later, on New Year's Eve, twenty

22:46

eight year old Paul Ford and his wife

22:48

Jane drove to Jane's sisters

22:50

home in Stocksbridge to attend

22:52

a party. They had just

22:55

moved on to the bypass when

22:57

Paul looked up to see a

22:59

dark cloak clad figure standing

23:01

in the road right in front of him.

23:04

He immediately swerved and slammed on the

23:07

brakes, wrestling with the steering

23:09

wheel as the car came to a judging

23:11

halt by the side of the road, but

23:14

again when they looked for the figure

23:16

afterwards, it was nowhere

23:18

to be seen. Since

23:31

such sightings have been recorded throughout

23:33

the world, often with surprisingly

23:35

similar details, there is the

23:38

temptation to label such events as

23:40

urban myths, and yet

23:43

rarely does one particular location garner

23:45

such a collection of similar sightings, and

23:48

over time a number of suggestions

23:51

have been put forward to explain the strange

23:53

events. During

23:55

the Industrial Revolution, the area

23:58

surrounding the Stocksbridge Bypass and

24:00

the A six one six road had

24:02

flourished as a hub of the British coal

24:05

mining industry. Up

24:07

until the mid nineteenth century. It

24:09

was common for children as young as five

24:12

years old to be sent down the coal

24:14

pits to work. Jobs

24:17

undertaken by children included

24:19

pulling the loaded carts along the small

24:21

tunnels of the mine, or

24:24

if you were really lucky, you might

24:26

get a job as a trapper, opening

24:28

small doors along the tunnels to let

24:30

the air in. Often

24:34

trappers would work for up to eighteen hours

24:36

at a time, sat alone

24:38

in the dark, with only the flickering

24:40

light of a solitary candle for

24:43

company. Naturally,

24:46

accidents and deaths were a regular

24:48

occurrence, perhaps,

24:50

as some have suggested, one

24:53

such fatal accident occurred in

24:55

the Stocksbridge region, giving

24:57

rise to the ghostly apparitions of

24:59

the large and dancing children. Another

25:04

local tale of law details the

25:06

story of a monk who had rejected

25:09

his monastery and as a result,

25:11

after he passed away, had been

25:13

buried in unconsecrated ground.

25:17

Perhaps this was the very same ground

25:19

that had been so brutally disturbed by

25:21

the construction of the bypass. However,

25:26

despite the local fondness for such explanations,

25:30

no substantial evidence has been found

25:32

to corroborate either of these tantalizing

25:34

stories, and

25:37

it is merely a coincidence, no doubt

25:40

that the number six one six is

25:42

considered by many scholars to be

25:44

the original number of the beast.

25:57

Whatever you believe, it is difficult

26:00

not to at least think upon the possible

26:02

traces and ghostly echoes that we

26:04

traverse as we make our way from A to

26:06

B to wonder

26:09

whose pasts and whose buried

26:11

secrets do we callously smother with

26:13

our grit and tarmac. What

26:16

ancient grounds, once considered

26:19

consecrated, are now to be ripped

26:21

apart by diggers and drills

26:23

loud enough to wake the dead. Many

26:28

years from now, a new generation

26:30

of Planners will come across the remnants

26:32

of an archaic pathway buried

26:35

deep below the Earth, with

26:37

nothing to discern its purpose save

26:40

for a rusted sign buried near

26:42

by, bearing a strange, cryptic

26:44

alphanumeric code that read

26:47

simply A six one

26:49

six. And

26:52

what then if, in the words

26:54

of the illustrious Douglas Adams, it

26:57

is decided one day that the entire

26:59

planet is to make way for a hyper

27:02

space bypass. Perhaps

27:04

future intergalactic travelers will

27:07

too feel that strange shiver as

27:09

they make their way between Venus and Mars,

27:13

turning to each other to say,

27:15

I heard there were people here once, and

27:17

sometimes you can almost feel

27:20

them.

27:27

This episode and episode five extra,

27:30

due out in a couple of weeks, concludes

27:32

season two of Unexplained. So

27:35

I just wanted to take a moment to once

27:37

again thank everyone for listening

27:39

to the show and for all your support.

27:42

It's been incredible, And

27:44

to everybody that has made a donation, I

27:47

really can't thank you enough, and I

27:49

look forward to putting your donations to good use

27:51

on season three. For which I may

27:53

have a few changes in store, and I

27:56

hope you enjoy them.

27:58

For anyone else who might like to do to the

28:00

show, you can find the support page

28:02

on the website at Unexplained podcast

28:05

dot com, forward slash Support.

28:08

Finally, I'd also just like to thank

28:11

listener Emma Bruce for bringing

28:13

the story of the Stocksbridge Bypass to my

28:15

attention. All

28:22

elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard

28:24

Acclaimed Smith. Please subscribe and rate

28:26

the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch

28:29

with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories

28:31

you've heard on the show. Perhaps

28:33

you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.

28:36

You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast

28:38

dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained

28:40

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