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T C Lethbridge – A Step in the Dark

On 13 November, 1964, in the afternoon, my wife and I drove from here to Broad Clyst near Exeter where I had an appointment. We drove past the two Bulston farms, up on to the A.35 and off it in a few yards onto a side road, which cuts off an angle between the A.35 and the main Colyton road to Honiton. At about 3.10 p.m. we passed the farm of Long Chimney on our right. A short distance further on there is a slight bend in the road with trees and bushes on both sides. The road has wide verges with deep ditches between them and banks with hedges on them. The verges and hedges had been cut recently and were neat and tidy. The day was clear and fine. I was looking about for birds in the hedges and only intermittently glancing at the road, although I was aware of it most of the time.

My wife was driving at perhaps 40 miles an hour. As we rounded the bend past the spinneys, my wife suddenly ejaculated: 'Did you see that car do that?' I looked directly ahead and could see a red triangle and signpost where our road met that from Colyton to Honiton. I expected to see a car on that road, badly driven perhaps, and saw nothing. 'What car?' I asked.

'The one that has just turned off through that hedge' .At this time we were passing a gate on the right of the road leading into a grass field at the end of the spinney. It was shut. My wife did not see it at all.

'There is no gate in the hedge is there?' she asked. 'Where has that car gone?' In fact it had gone completely.

There was no car and the only gate was shut. There were no bushes on the verge, or sticking out of the hedge, which might have suggested a car. 'What was it like?' I asked. 'It was an old-fashioned buffish car with a box-like body and a black top. When it was about 50 yards away and I was slowing down to pass it as it came towards me, it turned off and vanished through that hedge on its left. I could distinctly see the long grass on the verge in front of its wheels.'

Well, we were long past the gate by this time and as we had an appointment to keep we could not stop. But we came back the next morning and examined the place.

The gate was firmly shut and clearly had not been opened for weeks. No car could have driven through the hedge and, even if it could have done so, it would never have crossed the deep ditch in front of it. There were no tyre marks anywhere and they would certainly have shown in the mud beyond the gate.

The grass on the verge was cut short and could never have shown as my wife had seen it. In fact it was impossible. My wife had seen a car, which was not there when she saw it and had seen it most clearly. I had seen nothing and even if, as I have said, I was not concentrating on the road ahead, I think it most improbable that I would not have seen an approaching car if there had been one. My eyes were roving all the time. My wife is a most steady, careful driver and does not imagine things.

She had seen a ghost. Furthermore I think that ghost could only have been seen from the driving seat of a car going towards it.

Inquiry showed that there had been accidents on that bit of road, which were said to have been fatal. Why these should have taken place I don't know. It is an open road with wide verges.

Judging from my wife's description, the car she saw was of a pre-Hitler's War vintage. If she had seen a kind of television picture of an accident, it may have taken place anything from fifteen to thirty years ago. ….. there was a displacement in time. But how was the picture produced and what reproduced it again long afterwards?

Now I think it must be evident that the car did not produce a picture of itself. Neither could its driver have known what it would look like turning into the hedge. He did not produce it.

Somebody who saw it happen produced the picture and this must have been the driver of a car travelling in the opposite direction.

Someone sitting at the wheel of a car-, driven in the same track as my wife was driving, had such a shock that he momentarily jumped up the spindle of his spiral and photographed the scene in the next dimension. Since only he saw the incident, it was only visible to someone sitting in a similar position. That is why I did not see it, even if I were on the right wave length to do so. I could not see it. I was to one side of the beam.