Strangeness in Southcentral Pennsylvania

“In the late 1980s, I had an odd experience which you might find interesting,” Tabitha emailed. In her email Tabitha continued to share an odd experience in 1988.

That summer saw Tabitha and her sister staying with her grandparents in Hanover. “It was a typical summer for us,” Tabitha recalled. “Our parents would ship us up to stay with my mother’s parents for the summer, like always. Normally, we were stuck with our grandparents, but that year Dave (her cousin) rented a place down the road and Dave had a car. So we often had him take us places.

“It was the middle of August when this strange event happen.

“We were hanging out on my grandparent’s porch when Dave asked if we wanted to go visit a haunted cemetery. It was getting close to dark, but my sister and I were both excited to go visit this cemetery. It would be something different and exciting.

“Believing this cemetery was nearby, my sister and I got into his car and we headed westward. We drove around the rolling hills of York and Adams Counties looking for this haunted cemetery. Despite our search, we did not find the cemetery we were looking for and in the process of driving around, we got lost.

“We came to this T intersection and straight ahead of us we could see this large stone standing there. There was nothing strange about it. It was a stone at the edge of a farmer’s field. This rock was maybe 6 feet tall, 3 or 4 feet wide and about 2 feet long at the top.

“For reason unknown, we crossed the intersection and parked near the stone. Maybe it was because we were bored or maybe because we just needed to get out of the car. I’m not sure why we got out. But teenagers being teenagers we got out of the car. Dave left the headlights on so we could see while climbing on this rock. Standing on top of it, we would shout into the night.

“We were still goofing off when this car arrives at the intersection. The driver gets out and is yelling at us to get out of there and go home. He was an older man and he was definitely not happy we were playing on the rock. Or maybe it was we were messing around in the middle of nowhere in the dark that had him upset.

“He stood watching us until he drove away from the intersection. We drove back on the road we had followed to get to this intersection. We drove for a couple minutes, turned onto another road and then another. We believed we were following the roads we had taken to get here and we would be home soon. This road circled back and took us back to this same intersection with the large rock, approaching it from the right.

“We nervously laughed it off and turned back onto the road opposite this rock. As we drove, we somehow got turned around on the maze of roads and before we knew it, we were back at this T intersection staring at the same large rock.

“This time, Dave turned right, and we followed this road. Somehow, after making a number of turns, we were back at this same T intersection. This time we just sat there staring. Arriving back once was strange, but this was now the third time our choice of roads brought us back to the same place. It was straight out of the movie Children of the Corn as all roads seemed to be leading to this same place.

“This time we turned left, drove about a mile, where the road came to an end. So we turned around and headed back. We passed the intersection and drove for what seemed to be hours. We crested the hill and somehow we were back at the same intersection.

“If things weren’t strange enough, somehow we approached the intersection on the road that had been a dead-end earlier in the night. There is no way we could have approached this intersection from the direction we did, yet somehow we arrived at the intersection from a dead-end road.

“We were officially freaked out at this point and just wanted to go home.

“As we approached the intersection, we noticed a car pulled off to the side of the road. The man who told us to go home earlier that night stood leaning against the back of his car as if he was waiting for us to arrive. He motioned for us to stop and Dave rolled his window down slightly as the man walked over to the driver’s side.

““Are you done driving around?” he asked. “I think it is time for you to go home.”

“Dave nodded his head in agreement and we continued straight on that road and ended up on Route 15. Once there, we knew how to get to my grandparent’s house.

“But if things weren’t strange enough, I would have sworn we had been out for hours, but when we had arrived home, we had only been gone for a little over an hour.

“Dave and I drove out a couple times before I before I went home that summer. We never found that intersection with the rock again. I wish I had an explanation for why we kept ending up at the same intersection. Was there was something special about this location or was it just an odd coincidence? I wish I knew.”

After reading Tabitha’s email, I knew it was possible they had gotten confused in the dark. I asked Tabitha if this was a possible explanation for the events of that night. “It could be,” Tabitha replied. “But I have to ask you this. Is there that many T intersections in the region have a large rock at them? Also, how did that man, that same man, find us and knew where to wait for us at a random T intersection?”

I also asked her if it was possible they had turned onto the dead-end from another road. “No,” Tabitha answered. “I’m positive that we did not turn onto that road. I know that road had dead-ended earlier that night. It was like we were somehow teleported to be back at that intersection.”

After talking with her, I personally belief they merely got confused in the dark and got turned around on the rural backroads. In the darkness, they managed to discover the roads that led them back to the same intersection.

The only problem with this scenario is: how did they manage to approach it on a road which had been a dead-end earlier in the night? Did they actually teleport or in the darkness and their confusion somehow managed to drive onto the dead-end road and turn around without realizing it?

The other option it is the intersections were all different, but similar looking ones. But then, the question must be asked: how had the man who stopped them earlier known to be at that particular intersection to stop them later that night?

Was there a logical explanation for the strangeness or was there something else supernatural at play that evening? Unfortunately, the answers to what exactly happened that night remains hidden in the countryside of southcentral Pennsylvania.