WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE MYSTERIOUS HITCHHIKERS?

By Aileen

The phenomena of the "mysterious hitchhikers" is definitely a perplexing enigma to be pondered.

Recently while going through my files, I came to a folder of clippings on the vanishing hitchhikers. It seemed to be a good subject to do a little research on.

There must be many more clippings that some of your investigators have, plus personal reports. However, we will cover the ones we are aware of. That should be sufficient to get us thoroughly "mystified." We would appreciate hearing from anyone that has done research on this subject.

Concerning the mysterious hitchhikers, we must start from Square One. There will be no conclusions as the final chapter may never be known.

The predictions that have been made during these encounters will be correlated as far as possible, to see if indeed, what was predicted came true.

1951 - NEVADA DESERT

AGATE LAKE, Ore. Hugo Cavalli figures it's time to tell his secret about the stranger who climbed into his truck one wintry morning in 1951, predicted the driver's future and disappeared mysteriously.

Cavalli, 68, said the man rode with him for 11 hours through about 300 miles of Nevada desert. He said the man talked with certainty about the future - Cavalli's and the world's - and then seemed to disappear.

Cavalli, who now does maintenance work for a Medford (Oregon) motel, said he decided to tell his story after Arkansas State Police last week confirmed they had received three recent reports of a vanishing hitchhiker. Cavalli said he was working for a telephone company at the time of the incident after earlier having been a police officer, US Border Patrolman and Alameda County Sheriff's deputy.

Cavalli said the clean-cut, well-dressed man was not exactly hitching a ride when he decided to stop while taking a post hole digger from Reno to Elko. He said it was a below zero morning when he saw the man on the east city limits of Sparks, dressed in a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt.

Cavalli said he did not know what caused him to stop, especially since his boss had warned him about picking up riders and there was a sign saying that on the windshield.

"He wasn't exactly hitching," Cavalli said of the blond-haired, blue-eyed man in his mid 30s. "He was just looking at me."

Cavalli said the man stepped into his cab and said, "Good morning Hugo."

The driver said he prided himself on the ability to remember people he had met while in 20 years of police work but could not place the man's face of figure how he would know his first name.

He also figured his experience with the Oakland and Carson City police departments, Nevada and California highway patrols, and the Alameda County Sheriff's Department would help him in finding out more about the man.

Cavalli said his questions to the man produced no results.

When Cavalli offered to buy breakfast, the man said there was no need to - offering the driver a tuna fish sandwich. Cavalli said he could have sworn the man wasn't carrying anything with him when he got into the truck.

On the road between Lovelock and Winnemucca, Cavalli said "it started." He said the man began to speak of the future, pointing to the desert and calling it some of the richest land in the world that would produce ample food supplies.

Cavalli, a Roman Catholic, said he told himself, "Boy, have I got a religious nut here."

He said the man seemed to realize he was becoming skeptical and said he would "prove" to Cavalli he was telling the truth. The rider told Cavalli he would return to police work and be seriously injured.

"Who the hell do you think you are fella, Jesus Christ?" Cavalli said he asked the man.

"No, I'm not Jesus Christ," the man answered, "I'm just a man of vision."

When they reached an Elko service station, Cavalli said he turned his head briefly and his rider disappeared from the cab even though the door was onlyl open about seven inches at the time. He said the station attendant also said he had seen no one get out even though he had been watching the truck.

Several months after the experience, Cavalli said he had returned to police work and was riding with his partner when their patrol car was struck by another police car. Cavalli said he nearly died.

"There's no natural explanation for the things that took place," he said. "I have no explanation. It's probably the only thing in life I haven't resolved." (Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer for August 10, 1980)

JULY 1974 - ENGLAND

In July 1974, businessman Maurice Goodenough was driving on Blue Bell Hill in southern England. Suddenly he saw the figure of a young girl in his headlights directly in front of his car. Too late, he braked, and felt the impact as he ran into her.

Jumping out of his car, he found the victim lying on the road, her knees skinned and forehead bleeding. "Mommy", she moaned two or three times. Goodenough carried her to the side of the road, where he wrapped her in a blanket.

He then rushed off in his car to get help - but when he returned with police, the girl had disappeared. Only the blanket remained.

1975 - GALLUP, NEW MEXICO DESERT 10:20 AM

J.D. (witness on file) remembered under hypnosis that he picked up an "Indian" dressed impeccably in silvery black satin shirt, pants and hat with a flat brim, silver concho belt and strange shoes. The shoes were made out of what looked like natural leather; a cross between moccasins and regular shoes sewn in a "buck" stitch. Not a speck of dust was on his clothes, which was unusual seeing that this was the desert. He had long black braids and black eyes. His skin was very wrinkled. J.D. felt like he knew him and was very comfortable with him. He asked to be let out in a remote area and said he would see J.D. again. J.D. wondered where he would go as there was nothing at all in this area. J.D. noted that they never saw a car while the Indian was with him. He later recalled seeing the same person on board a UFO during a close encounter while traveling between Dallas and Arkansas back in 1957. Since that time J.D. has seen him i n his bedroom at night. He has told J.D. in 1981 and 1982 to gather seeds for the future times and learn about how to grow plants.

MARCH 1978 - SOUTH AFRICA

On March 31, 1978, on the edge of the Karroo Desert near Uniondale, South Africa, Army Cpl. Dawie van Jaarsveld stopped his motorcycle to pick up an attractive brunette hitchhiker. With the girl seated behind him and wearing his spare helmet, he drove off.

Suddenly he felt an odd bumping sensation, glanced back - and was shocked to find the woman had vanished. He retraced his path, but was unable to find her in the darkness.

A few days later, paranormal researcher Cynthia Hind showed him a photograph of 22-year-old Maria Charlotte Roux, who had been killed in a car crash 10 years before, on the same stretch of road.

The young soldier positively identified the woman in the photo.

OCTOBER 1979 - ENGLAND

In October 1979, Roy Fulton of Liverpool, England was driving along a deserted, foggy stretch of road when he picked up a man with an unusually long, deathly pale face.

"Roy asked him where he was headed," Goss said. "Wordlessly, his passenger pointed in the direction of a nearby town." Fulton turned to offer his passenger a cigarette - and was shocked to see he had vanished. He slammed on the brakes, turned around and retraced his route, fearing the man had leaped out and hurt himself.

when he failed to find any trace of the man, he reported the incident to police, who also searched the area. They found nothing.

APRIL OR MAY 1980 - WASHINGTON AND OREGON, USA (ANNOTATED) (OREGONIAN 6-9-80)

There's a Northwest myth being made before our very eyes - or ears anyway.

At the heart of this 20th century myth is a Woman of doom who appears as a hitchhiker. After being picked up, she delivers a doomsday message and - poof! - she vanishes into nothingness, virtually before the eyes of the startled motorist.

When I checked Washington State Patrol offices the other day, at least two of those calls had come in before noon.

The myth began several months ago, according to communications officer Robert Gates of the State Patrol office in Tacoma. It's getting hazy now just what the first story was, but the basic tale keeps popping up.

Originally, the stories had it, a motorist picks up a woman hitchhiker - perhaps a nun, but the details differ from one version to the next. The hitchhiker, riding in the back seat, asks if the driver believes in Jesus Christ. Finding out that he does, she adds that he'll be saved and that the world is coming to an end on a given date.

Then - poof! as I said before - she disappears. Just like that.

The reports have variations. Sometimes these strange encounters happen coming from or going to Spokane and frequently between Portland and Seattle, Robers said. In any event his office has had maybe 15 to 20 calls about the story.

Mythology being mythology (or rumor being rumor), the story has been altered to meet the concerns of the times.

What are the times? Mount St. Helen's times, of course. The latest story, reported to The Oregonian by Rachel Edwards and Jerry Hunt of a Wilsonville real estate office, involves not the end of the entire world but just that part affected by the volcano.

The story - told to them by someone who knows someone and so on - concerns a man who was driving between Portland and Seattle and picked up a woman hitchhiker. She was a quiet sort who occasionally uttered some philosophical comment from the back seat. After a bit, she said that the volcano would really blow June 18. (It blew on May 18)

Then - you guessed it - poof! She's gone.

Over at the Vancouver office of the WSP, communications officer Tad Kajiwara hadn't heard the story at all until Friday morning. That's when a Carson, WA woman called and told her version. Like the others, it appeared to be a secondhand, or maybe 10th-hand, report. The story involved two fishermen who had picked up a woman hitchhiker who told them that everyone would be dead in 30 days because the volcano was going to blast off again in a big way.

And then - right you are - poof!

While I called it a Northwest myth in the making, it really has been a Washing state myth. The reports seem to have been only to Washington State Patrol offices. The Oregon State Police in Portland hadn't heard of it until I enquired.

JUNE 29, 1980 -NEAR CONWAY, ARKANSAS

A State Police spokesman said one report was made June 29, a Sunday, by a woman who said she was driving on US Highway 65, apparently near Conway, when she picked up a hitchhiker. The woman reported that the young man and persons in the car began talking about world affairs and "how bad things were" when the man suddenly disappeared, the spokesman said. It couldn't be determined immediately Thursday whether the woman left her name with the State Police.

The second report was made the following Sunday, July 6. A man called the State Police and said persons he knew had picked up a hitchhiker between Little Rock and Benton. When the conversation turned to the weather, the man said it would never rain again and then disappeared, the man said. The man who made the second report would not leave his name.

The Gazette talked with five persons Wednesday who had heard accounts of a disappearance near Conway. Each person referred the reporter to another person who might know who actually met the hitchhiker, but no one who had picked up a disappearing hitchhiker could be reached. In the accounts heard by the persons interviewed by the Gazette, the hitchhiker said something about Jesus Christ coming back before disappearing. The persons in the car then stopped a state trooper, who told them there had been three or four other similar reports recently, according to the accounts.

AUGUST 28, 1980 - FORKS, WASHINGTON

Numerous reports of a mysterious lady appearing along back country roads near Mt. St. Helens have unearthed strange stories reminiscent of Hawaiian volcano legends of the Goddess Pele.

This week a Forks area man told friends and his minister this strange story;

"I was driving on one of the rural backroads out between Morton and Randall near the volcano, when I see this woman standing by the road.

"She's all dressed up, too dressed up actually, and thumbin' a ride.

"It was dark and desolate out there, the whole place is unearthly, and she was alone out there in the middle of no place, so I picked her up."

The man said she got in the back seat and began 'talkin' a mile a minute" and she told the man, "On October 12 or 13 the volcano is going to blow, and this time it's taking about 100 miles around it."

Startled by this statement, the driver looked in the rear view mirror, but couldn't see anyone. He stopped and the back seat was empty.

Shaken and worried about the woman's fate, after looking around for her, he drove to a nearby police station and reported the strange happening. The policeman on duty said, "Don't feel bad, we've had a whole bunch of guys reporting the same thing happening to them.

APRIL 28, 1981 - EKENAESSJOEN, SWEDEN

"I tell you, I just don't want to believe what I have seen," 42-year-old truck driver Bertil Akerman said with a shudder. "But I know he was for real - just like you or me!"

Akerman was driving his truck along a lonely stretch of highway when he noticed the youthful hitchhiker - wearing a green jacket and furlined hood - standing n the roadside.

"I stopped and he climbed into the cab," Akerman recalled. "He began to talk about Jesus Christ and the Second Coming.

"I heard him say in a matter-of-fact tone, "Jesus Christ is coming again... soon. Very soon, indeed.' Well, I turned to him - and he just dissolved before my eyes, clothes and all! I was shocked and nearly lost control of the truck!"

Akerman wasn't the first to encounter the ghostly hitchhiker near the village of Ekenaessjoen. Among other reports is the story of two young women who say they also gave him a lift on e night - with the same astounding result.

"I was frightened out of my wits - I just didn't know what to make of it." said 17-ear-old Inga-Lill Hedenborg.

Again, the young man was wearing a green jacket with a fur-lined hood, she said.

"He began to talk about religion - and he told us, "Jesus Christ is coming. He is coming again quite soon."

"I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked back to tell him I didn't believe in religion very much - but as I turned my head he dissolved into nothingness!

"He just wasn't there. We must have been traveling at 50 mph or more. I just don't know how he could have done it - but it's true.

MOUNT ST. HELEN'S DATES OF MAJOR ERUPTIONS*

May 18 - 19 Explosive Activity - Debris avalance dacite blast deposits lacite pumice flow, lahars
June 12 - 13 Explosive Activity - Dacite Dome lobe and pyroclastic flows
August 7 - 8 Explosive Activity - Dacite Dome lobe and pyroclastic flows
October 16 - 18 Explosive Activity - Dacite Dome lobe and pyroclastic flows

* University of Washington Seismic Dept. "Eruptive History of Mt. St. Helens"

CONCLUSION

As mentioned in the beginning of this article - there aren't any. How can you make deductions with a willow-the-wisp?

We do know Mt. St. Helens erupted but not the dates specified. However, it was within two day so of the October prediction. Loss of life occurred during the May 18 eruption but not during the later ones. The eruption predicted for October 12 did not fulfill the devastation of 100 miles, if we understand the October 16 eruption is the one prophesied.

Perhaps the answer lies in getting man to pay some heed to future events. But "who" are these mysterious hitchhikers that participate; dopplegangers, aliens, elementals, or perhaps a parallel, or slightly different dimension which we cannot see but what happens in this dimension may have an effect on theirs. It certainly is a perplexing phenomena and quite frightening to the persons involved at the time.

Up until the present day we have not heard of any more phantom hitchhikers but I am sure it is still happening somewhere, we just haven't heard about it.