This is a true story.

It was late at night and my boyfriend and I were driving to my house. We took a shortcut through an area of town that everyone here calls “The Bottoms” or river bottoms. It’s right in the middle of a huge metropolitan city, USA. There are no buildings though, only fields and trees. You can’t build there because it’s a flood plain; not suitable for building on.

There is one narrow road that goes through the middle of The Bottoms and it just so happens to be a direct link between my boyfriend’s house and mine. Late at night it’s very dark. There are no street lights.

So we were traveling rather quickly down that road when we came upon a bridge. You could only see what was visible in the headlights: road and very tall grass. It was probably 3 feet tall.

We went up and over the bridge and began to descend on the other side.

Suddenly, a woman appeared on the right side of the road. The headlights shined directly on her. She was standing in the grass right beside the road.

It was 2:30 in the morning. The area was completely deserted.

We were both stunned. Silent.

We sped passed her. After a frightening moment we both shouted, “did you just see that girl?!?” Yes, we had both seen her.

Immediately I assumed she was someone whose car had either broken down or had wrecked. Because she had a distressed look about her.

We spoke rapidly on top of each other. Should we turn back? OMG! Should we call 911? What should we do??? Is she okay?

Earlier that night we had both had a couple of drinks. Many hours had passed and we were both sober. But in our part of the world, the police can arrest you and take you to jail if they even smell alcohol on your breath. You could get in a huge amount of trouble. Even go to prison.

If we turned back, if we had to call the police, it was just too risky. I mean, if she was really in distress, she could call for help on her cell phone. Right? OMG what if her phone was dead?

Physical description: she was young. Somewhere between 17 and 25 years old. She had blonde hair. She was pretty. She was wearing a white shirt. The bottom half of her body was covered by the thick tall grass. She was sort of waving her arms. Not over her head but in front of her. Her face wore a scared expression. But she had no blood, no bruises or dirt on herself.

So what in the hell was she doing standing right by the road in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, by herself, looking scared and waving her arms?

We were both very tired. We proceeded to my house and went right to bed.

The next morning I felt guilty. Because we didn’t stop. The local police post every police activity on a website that’s called a scanner. I began to search the scanner, looking for an accident report. There was nothing. We both felt very bad and worried about the young woman.

Later, my boyfriend told our story to his friend. His friend grew up near The Bottoms. She was the one who put it all together for us.

We had seen a ghost, she told him.

She recalled that 20 or so years ago, a young woman named Katie Nesbit had been murdered in the river Bottoms. It was a huge deal. So we went online and found some old newspaper articles about the murder. There was a yearbook picture of the girl. She had blonde hair.

Could that have been her ghost???

The most awful thing about it is that Katie and her boyfriend had been brutally stabbed to death over a car stereo.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I continued to search online and ended up finding a page for a local Paranormal Society. I clicked on “contact us” and typed our story. I felt better. At least I had reported this to somebody!

I received a reply email from a man at the Paranormal Society. He told me that The Bottoms was definitely a haunted area. Many people had reported seeing strange things there over the years. And he also could recall that poor girl’s murder.

So it was settled. Mystery solved.

I am not a “ghost type”. I have never encountered a ghost, or an alien or a witch or a UFO or anything like that. I do believe that ghosts exist, but I would never go looking for one. All of that stuff scares me to death. But I am here to tell you, this really happened and I would not make this up. There were 2 witnesses who saw the exact same thing. And anyone around here would tell you this….you never see anyone on the side of the road in the bottoms. Especially late at night. Especially not a girl all alone.

The Paranormal Guy promised to investigate our sighting. But I haven’t heard from him in a while.