Highways to the Unknown: Ghosts on the Open Road in Oxfordshire

There’s something strange about English roads after dark. As the headlights stretch into the mist and the trees close in, the line between past and present begins to blur. Over the years, countless drivers have reported chilling encounters with figures who appear from nowhere… and vanish just as quickly. Silent hitch-hikers. Spectral coaches. Headless horses. Cars from another era with no drivers and no destination.

Below are just some of the roads where these haunting tales unfold—places where not everything that travels the tarmac is entirely… alive.

Bicester to Banbury Road (near Souldern)

On a fog-drenched November night, a motorist following an old-style estate car—a black Morris Traveller with wooden panels—was startled when it vanished mid-journey. No side road, no warning. One moment it was there; the next, it was gone.

Years earlier, in the same spot and under the same fog, a young motorcyclist encountered what appeared to be the very same vehicle. It stood in the middle of the road, headlamps off. As he slowed down… it faded before his eyes.

Was it an echo from a long-forgotten crash? Or something else entirely—forever trapped in a looping journey through the mist?

Littlemore Railway Bridge

As a car approached the bridge late one night, a girl on a bicycle suddenly appeared, riding straight towards the bonnet. The wife screamed. The husband slammed the brakes. But when the car stopped, there was no sign of the cyclist. No crash. No dent. No body.

They got out, searching in panic. But beneath the vehicle—nothing. Only silence, and the lingering horror of what they nearly struck… or thought they did.

Asthall Manor (near the River Windrush)

She appears soaked, her hair dripping wet, her face pale and silent. A young woman with olive skin and the look of a gypsy steps into the road, waving at passing cars.

Those who stop say she climbs silently into the passenger seat, points ahead, and eventually whispers something mournful—"It’s too late. He’s gone," or "You got my message then?"—before vanishing, leaving only a damp seat and a trail of water.

Some believe she is tied to a drowning in the nearby river. Perhaps she died trying to save someone. Or perhaps she waits endlessly, trying to deliver a message the living are never ready to hear.

Burford Area

There are no shapes here. No figures or faces. Just a presence.

Drivers have reported driving through a strange black mist near Burford. Not fog, but something darker—thicker. Something alive. Within it, a feeling of overwhelming dread settles in, as though something unseen is watching… closing in.

Animals panic. People feel disoriented, nauseated. No one knows where exactly it appears. Only that it does. And when it does, you’ll know.

A361 – Banbury to Oxford

A woman driving at night was forced to stop when a red sports car appeared in the middle of the road, damaged as if from a recent crash. As she stepped out to help… it vanished.

Further down the road, the same car appeared again. And again, it vanished.

Local rumours mention a fatal crash years earlier involving an American serviceman. Could this phantom car be his final moment—playing out again and again?

Wychwood Forest

There’s an old legend about a black four-wheeled coach, drawn by two horses and marked with a scarlet crest. It only appears once every seven years—and it’s driven by the Devil himself.

He rides through Wychwood Forest, searching for something. Or someone. And while no one knows when the seventh year comes, those who’ve heard the hoofbeats echoing through the trees swear it’s no folktale.

Finstock to Charlbury Road

The coach is often invisible—but its presence is undeniable.

A mother and her young son once heard the sounds of an approaching carriage as they walked to a bridge. The boy claimed he could see it: a green coach, a crying lady in a feathered hat, two men driving. She reached out to him. Wanted him to come.

The mother, terrified, held him back. She never saw the coach—but the boy described it with chilling precision.

Rollright Stones (near Little Rollright)

This ancient site is surrounded by legends, and the stretch of road beside it is no exception.

In the span of just two weeks, three motorists reported strange happenings: a massive black dog that passed by and vanished… a car with silent passengers that simply ceased to exist… and a gypsy caravan that appeared and disappeared in a blink.

Some believe the stones themselves, rooted in myth and mystery, might be responsible. Others say the land is naturally charged with energy, disrupting time—and reality.

Not all roads are merely routes between towns. Some carry echoes of lives lost, tragic moments that refuse to fade, or visitors from elsewhere—who step briefly into our world before vanishing once more.

So next time you’re driving a lonely lane with the fog curling at your headlights and the radio humming low, glance at the rear-view mirror. Check the passenger seat.

Because not everything on the road is human.

And not everything that disappears was imagined.