A lonely country road.

A driver travelling through the Bedfordshire countryside.

And a passenger who seemingly disappears without a trace.

This week on This Is A Ghost Story, we head to the small village of Stanbridge and one of the strangest ghost stories to emerge from the local area.

For years, stories have circulated of a mysterious figure encountered on the roads around Stanbridge — a phantom hitchhiker whose appearance has left those who claim to have seen them with an experience they cannot easily explain.

It’s a classic piece of ghostly folklore: a solitary figure beside the road, an unsuspecting motorist and a journey that takes a decidedly supernatural turn.

But where did the story come from?

Is the Phantom Hitchhiker of Stanbridge based on a genuine encounter? Has the tale changed as it has been passed from person to person? And why do remarkably similar stories of vanishing hitchhikers appear all over Britain — and around the world?

Kathryn and Alison tell the story, before Producer Andrew digs into the history and folklore surrounding the case and takes a closer look at the enduring legend of the Vanishing Hitchhiker.

Was somebody really encountered on a dark Bedfordshire road?

Could there be a more ordinary explanation?

Or does something still wait beside the road at Stanbridge for the next unsuspecting driver to come along?

As always… we’ll leave that for you to decide.

🚗 A lonely road.

👤 A mysterious passenger.

👻 And a journey the witnesses would never forget.

🎧 This Is A Ghost Story — Episode 21: The Phantom Hitchhiker of Stanbridge

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube.

Have you ever encountered a mysterious figure while driving late at night? Or experienced something strange, paranormal or completely unexplained?

We’d love to hear your story — it could feature in a future episode of This Is A Ghost Story.

📧 thisisaghoststory@icloud.com

🎵 MUSIC CREDITS

Opening Music

“It’s In The Fog” — Darren Curtis (@DarrenCurtisMusic)

Via BreakingCopyright — Royalty Free Music

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Music provided via BreakingCopyright

https://breakingcopyright.com

Additional Music

“Haunted”

Composer: Ross Bugden

Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQKGLOK2FqmVgVwYferltKQ

License: Free To Use YouTube license — youtube-free

Music powered by BreakingCopyright:

https://breakingcopyright.com

🔊 SOUND EFFECTS

SFX from Pixabay

https://pixabay.com/

👻 EPISODE 20 — GHOSTS GONE WILDThe Funny Side of the Paranormal

This week’s episode contains bleeped swearing and words that may not be suitable for younger listeners.

Not every ghost story ends with screaming.

Sometimes the ghost tells you to f##k off.

Sometimes a UFO apparently abducts your dog, car AND tent.

And sometimes the mysterious object you’ve been following through the sky turns out to be… a Tesco carrier bag.

This week on This Is A Ghost Story, we’re doing something a little different.

Kathryn, Alison and Andrew take a trip through the stranger — and considerably funnier — side of the paranormal, digging into bizarre ghost encounters and some genuinely extraordinary reports preserved in Britain’s official Ministry of Defence UFO files.

We’ve got a foul-mouthed ghost at Dead Woman’s Ditch, a mysterious fireball that reportedly flew into a woman’s kitchen and landed in a carrier bag, a worried Springer Spaniel, a schoolgirl demanding UFO disclosure from the British government, police officers chasing something across Ohio… and a man who claimed he was living with an alien in Carlisle.

Plus phantom cats, pub ghosts, apparitions being completely ignored and the important question nobody else seems willing to ask:

If a ghost tells you to f##k off… do you actually have to?

Some of these encounters may have perfectly ordinary explanations. Others remain disputed or unexplained. But every case reminds us that the paranormal doesn’t always have to be terrifying.

Sometimes… it’s just bloody weird.

🎧 GHOSTS GONE WILD — The Funny Side of the Paranormal

👻 LISTENER CHALLENGE

Have you ever had a paranormal experience that was actually funny?

Maybe you completely embarrassed yourself after mistaking something ordinary for a ghost or UFO. Maybe your resident spirit is more annoying than frightening. Or perhaps something genuinely unexplained happened that you couldn’t help laughing about afterwards.

We want to hear it.

📧 thisisaghoststory@icloud.com

Send us your story and, if we get enough, we’ll make another episode entirely from your funny paranormal encounters.

🎵 MUSIC CREDITS

Opening Music: “It’s In The Fog” — Darren Curtis (@DarrenCurtisMusic)Via BreakingCopyright — Royalty Free MusicLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0Music provided via BreakingCopyright

“Mischievous” — HarumachiMusicVia Pixabay

Sound effects via Pixabay.

👻 EPISODE 19 — RAILWAY COTTAGE

An abandoned cottage. An overgrown path. And a voice from inside a house that should have been empty.

This week on This Is a Ghost Story, we bring you another chilling true listener experience.

When Dom arrived to begin work on an old railway cottage, the building had been left empty and almost swallowed by the undergrowth. But before the work had even properly begun, strange things started happening.

A voice heard when nobody else was there.

Footsteps and unexplained sounds.

Objects seemingly moving on their own.

And the growing feeling that whoever — or whatever — remained inside the cottage wasn’t particularly pleased to have company.

Kathryn and Alison tell Dom’s story, before Andrew joins them to dig into the history, the possible explanations and the ghosts that have long been associated with Britain’s railways.

Was Railway Cottage simply an old building making old-building noises?

Or had Dom disturbed something that had been there long before he arrived?

🎧 Turn the lights down, put your headphones on… and come with us to Railway Cottage.

👻 This Is a Ghost Story

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube.

Have you experienced something you can’t explain? We’d love to hear your story — it could feature in a future episode.

🎵 MUSIC CREDITS

Opening Music — “It’s In The Fog” — Darren Curtis (@DarrenCurtisMusic)
Via BreakingCopyright — Royalty Free Music

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Music provided via BreakingCopyright
https://breakingcopyright.com

“Haunted”
Composer: Ross Bugden
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQKGLOK2FqmVgVwYferltKQ
License: Free To Use YouTube License
Music powered by BreakingCopyright:
https://breakingcopyright.com

🔊 SFX from Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/