Old Highway 40
It was late afternoon when I pulled off onto the shoulder of Highway 40, not far from Hays, Kansas. I had passed the area of Victoria and what is called the Cathedral of the Plains. Tired, I drifted off into a mild sleep. The day was clear. There was no traffic. I awoke to the sound of voices. To the left, outside my car window on the open road, was a couple in what could best be described as a surrey with a fringe on top. It was a genuine four-wheeled, two-seated carriage with a brown top. Two brown horses pulled it. The couple was studying me, and I was studying them. The man reminded me of the late actor William Holden, and the woman beside him was dark-haired and pretty. I would say they were in their mid- 30s. Their clothes were of the fashion found in the 1890s. I waved and they waved back. But when I rolled the car window down to speak, they slowly faded into the flat nothingness that surrounded me and then vanished within a few seconds. The fact that I had been acknowledged by the couple in the surrey in such a manner led me to reflect on ideas concerning a time vortex. Is it not possible that a sensitive to such encounters, under the right conditions, could also be sensitive to a time vortex? Is it not possible that as I was seeing the couple in the surrey, the couple in the surrey was seeing me at the same time? In this instance, was I their ghostly encounter and they were my ghostly encounter? I drove on into Hays, Kansas, and had a nice meal at an old restaurant. I never forgot the incident of this contact, and the reality of the situation was that I almost stepped into a different time stream and a different era. I have had other such encounters, and I know the difference between a ghostly encounter and an encounter with a time vortex. Someday, I might come across a time vortex that appeals to me and step into it, and thus become another unexplained disappearance.
Written by —Lee Prosser
OLD HIGHWAY 40 5 MILES SOUTHEAST OF HAYS, KANSAS
Taken from the: Encyclopedia of Haunted Places -Ghostly Locales from around the World – Compiled & Edited by Jeff Belanger – Copyright 2005 by Jeff Belanger