Nestled between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties in California, west of Gilroy and east of Watsonville, is a mountain pass known as Hecker Pass. U.S. Highway 152 runs right through it.
Photo credit left: flickr/Morgan Ernst right: horrify.me.uk
Updated 9/23/2019 – And they say that if you drive on that stretch of road late at night, you would do well not to stop on your way through, because there is a paranormal apparition there who just might decide that your soul looks like a tasty midnight snack.
Hecker Pass May Be The Home Of An Angry Ghost
Local legends, which date all the way back to the mid-1800s, state that there is a woman in a “white frilly dress” who haunts the area, and who sometimes attacks those who pass by in the middle of the night.
Unlike many haunted locations, however, this one does not appear to have a backstory (or if it does, no one has come forward so far to explain it to the general public.)
No, it just appears that the ghost of a woman roams the area.
And she is a very, very unfriendly ghost.
Photo credit: horrify.me.uk
“They found my great-grandfather’s journals,” says Hattie, an 86 year-old who currently resides in one of Watsonville’s retirement communities, and who chain smokes unfiltered Camels between puffs on her oxygen tank.
“He was a homesteader, you know, and he built him a cabin on the other side of the pass.
“He disappeared in 1876, and was never heard from again.
“The last few entries in his journal talk of him meeting a strange woman out in the woods, and how she would disappear and then reappear standing right behind him, hissing into his ear.
“He was very afraid of her, and thought she was some kind of spirit.
“Those entries went on every day for four months, until the day he just simply was gone and no one ever saw him again.”
The Woman In The White Frilly Dress Might Be A Murderess
Similar disappearances in modern times have been hinted at by locals, although so far no hard evidence exists to prove or disprove anything.
Multiple times a year, nighttime drivers through the area will report seeing the woman – who always appears in a nineteenth-century-style frilled dress.
In almost every report, it is the moment when she looks up that most drivers step on the gas to get the hell out of there.
“She has fangs, man,” says one young driver who used to drive through the pass regularly, but avoids it at all costs now – at least at night.
“And there’s blood all over her face.
“She’s a killer, I’m telling you, and I don’t want to be her next victim.”
Although nothing is etched in stone when it comes to the ghost in the white frilly dress, one thing is clear:
She inspires fear in the hearts of those who see her.
