QUICK FACTS:
Location: Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Appearance: A green shaft of light that flashed on and off and sometimes changed shape into an orb that hovered over the road or in nearby trees. Occasionally the light was reported as red.
Folklore:
- The light was said to be the spirit of a woman whose child had been killed in an accident on the road.
- The light was the ghost of an escaped murdered slave.
- The light was the ghost of a young person shot by a caretaker or landowner.
Other explanations: None.
Additional notes: Around 1998, the road was paved over, and shortly after a housing development was built on the site. This seems to have ended all activity.
MORE INFORMATION:
Hansell Road was an underdeveloped road in Bucks County, Pennsylvania that hosted a ghost light that was referred to locally as the “Green Ghost.” The light appeared as a green shaft of light that flashed on and off within seconds and sometimes changed shape while the observer watched. There were also reports of the light forming an orb and hovering over the road or in the nearby trees. Sometimes, the light emerged out of the surrounding woods, while other times it appeared spontaneously. Occasionally the light was reported as red.
Several stories grew up around the green light. One maintained that it was the spirit of a woman whose child had been killed in a car accident on the road. Another told the tale of an escaped murdered slave, while another attributed the activity to the ghosts of young people killed by a caretaker or land owner.
Around 1998, the road was paved over, and shortly after a housing development was built on the site. This seems to have ended all activity on Hansell Road, and the ghost light has fallen into obscurity.
READER EXPERIENCES:
(1) Date received: Fri, 12 Feb 1999
In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, you can find Hansell Road; it’s an innocent-looking road except for the reports of what goes on there after dark. I have visited Hansell Road and I personally have nothing strange to report, except that the night I went with some friends, I lost one of my mufflers on my Camaro trying to high tail it out of there when another car was coming. I thought it was the officer that kicked us out the night before.
Although I’ve never seen anything, I have a close friend and a few acquaintances that have experienced the “haunting” first hand. One of the stories I hear is that a glowing green light can be seen in the woods next to the road, swinging as if it were a lantern being held by someone. That sounds fairly inconclusive, until you hear what it does next.
A close friend of mine visited the road with some of her friends one night and saw the same light working its way through the woods towards their pickup truck. My friend tells me that the light was growing larger and larger and when it reached the road, it hovered for a few seconds, then proceeded to “drop” straight down and splatter on the road, resembling the same effect as a drop of water falling into a puddle. This was all scary enough until the light came back up to the surface of the road closer to the truck and started rolling towards them. My friend convinced the driver to get a move on, and the ball of green light rolled off into the woods. I’ve heard the same story from a number of people who have witnessed this thing, and according to everyone I’ve talked to they were skeptics until it happened to themselves.
Unfortunately, last year the township paved the narrow road, which used to be dirt and potholes, to accommodate the new development that was just built at the entrance to the road. I’ve spoken to people who haven’t seen anything since the road was paved, but who knows? You can find Hansell Road between Buckingham and Pipersville on Route 413, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
If you are going to try it, you’ll need to know this.
First, it sounds cheesy, but the only way this phenomena works is by going at night, finding the correct spot to sit in, and turning off your car and all lights. I’ve been told you will see nothing for a long time if your car is running, or if you have a flashlight on. Second, kids like to party on Hansell Road sometimes, so it’s watched by the police occasionally. I ran into an officer, and before I even got a chance to tell him why we were going there, he said, “There’s nothing to see on Hansell Road, it’s just a place where kids go to party. Go find a ghost somewhere else.”
Good luck and happy spook hunting.
(2) Date received: Fri, 27 Aug 1999
I am from Bucks County and have been on Hansell Road many times. My girlfriends and I used to go to get the sh*t scared out of us just for the thrill. In addition to the green lights, we also saw the swirling red lights and the ghosts in the trees. Have you ever gone to Gravity Hill, which is right around the same area? It’s by the old church that is supposedly haunted and shows a pentagram on the front door at midnight during a full moon. We hung out until 11:55 but chickened out and left really fast one night.
Anyway, we always had a great time and I am sorry to hear that they paved the road. By the way, the right place to sit was right at the edge of the trees before the open field.
(3) Date received: Sun, 15 Aug 1999
Dear Sir,
I have seen the Green Ghost personally. It was a couple of years before all of the construction took place. A friend, my girlfriend, and I were sitting in the car right past the field by the creek in the wooded part of the road facing Route 413. We were there about a half hour when all of a sudden there was this beam of green light standing about 50 feet to the front/left of the car. It looked like a car’s headlight bouncing off a puddle, but there was no car or puddle. The green light took the form of a six foot tall cylinder. It then proceeded to move onto the road, where it started to move away from us at a walking pace.
Just as fast as it appeared, it disappeared but on a slant from the bottom up. The Green Ghost was only there for about three to five seconds, too short to register in my mind until it was gone. I then asked if anybody else saw something strange (not telling what I saw) and my girlfriend said, “What the green thing?” and I said yes. So I know I was not the only one to see it. Our friend did not see anything and she was in the driver’s seat.
I swear that everything above is true and correct.
(4) Date received: Wed, 11 Aug 1999
Hansell Road is right up the street from me; you can see it from my backyard. I moved here almost three years ago. When I came here I heard a lot of different stories about why the road is haunted. For example, I was told it was haunted because of a slave that was killed on that road. I haven’t seen the green light yet.
Also, there is a street lamp on that road that continuously goes on and off. It may be some electrical problem, but my friend and I think it’s because of the haunted road, because every time at night when we walk up to the road and get to the street lamp it goes off sometimes.
I read about Hansell Road and the green light at a website, and it says a green light comes from the woods, and it looks like someone is swinging a lantern. Another story I heard was that a boy and a girl drove into the woods to hang out, and they heard something dripping on the roof of the car. When the boy got out of the car to see what the noise was he didn’t come back. The girl grew frightened and was scared to get out of the car. She then fell asleep and when she woke up, she got out of the car and found her boyfriend and another person hanging upside down from a tree, slit at the throats, and the blood was dripping down on the roof of the car, and that is what the noise was from.
(5) Date received: Sat, 26 Feb 2000
A friend of mine named Susan told me her account of a ghostly sighting on Hansell Road in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Susan was a bit skeptical of Hansell Road. She thought the person who told her what he knew was “putting her on.” She decided to check it out for herself one night, and what she told me sends chills up my spine.
The two found the road, and found the spot where they thought they should be sitting to witness the green lights. Apparently they were either dead on or close enough to the spot, because they witnessed what made her and her friend believers in this phenomenon. As the two were waiting for something to happen, Sue spotted a green light “slithering” through the woods towards the front of the car. When the light had reached the road, Sue and her friend confirmed with each other what they were seeing. As they were confirming seeing the light slither to the road, the light suddenly “stood up” and made a sizable presence before them. She said it was about the size of a man, but had no features of a human. They were quite spooked at this point and before finding out what else it did they decided to leave. I don’t blame them.
(6) Date received: Mon, 28 Feb 2000
On the evening of February 27, I took a ride out to Hansell Road to see for myself what goes on there. I had been on Hansell Road once during the day, and it sure has changed since then. It’s no longer a desolate skinny dirt road filled with potholes. It’s now a wide paved road with new houses on either side, and also it seems to be a main route for leaving a development and traveling out to Route 413. Interestingly enough, in the area that was pointed out to me to be the correct area to sit and watch for the green specter, a house now sits right on top of it and a footpath has been added all along side of the road. From what I’ve heard goes on there, I won’t be surprised if the haunting of Hansel Road becomes the Haunted House of Hansel Road. I wonder if they know they are on top, and I mean literally on top, of the hotspot of ghostly activity. I think one night I need to hang out on the footpath and wait.
(7) Date received: Thu, 11 April 2002
Here’s my story about Hansell Road, and I can fully explain all the other stories. The reason why nothing happens anymore is someone at some point in time put up a series of mirrors, like the circular ones people use to back out of driveways. Well, they were all tinted green and placed throughout the woods with one of them pointing at Route 413. Whenever a car would pass, the lights would run off the mirrors and thus give the illusion of a ghost. When the new homes were built the mirrors where discovered by the construction crews.
(8) Date received: Mon, 06 Oct 2003
I have lived near Hansell Road for nearly 30 years and used to go see the ghost with friends on cold, crisp autumn evenings in the early ’90s. I can attest to seeing the ghost dozens of times.
The story behind the ghost I am most familiar with was that a group of teens were drinking back there in the late ’70s and crashed on the way out. The weird thing is that they never found all the bodies. Back in the day before all the developments you would drive up what we called “the mother’s chair” and wait to see the ghost.
Why “the mother’s chair”? It was a tree with a bend in it that looked like a chair. It was said that the mother of the missing kid was so distraught from the loss of her son that she would spend hours on the road, and finally the depression killed her. It was her ghost that you were seeing because she was trying to see if you were in fact her missing child. As for the writer who says it was mirrors on the road, I used to ride my bike on that road when I was just a little kid and there were maybe three houses back there. Where we would set up to watch the ghost was nowhere near any of the houses. This theory was floated back in 1992 and we tried to find mirrors and never saw any. And why would someone even need a mirror when pulling out into a dirt road which was never travelled on? The physics of that excuse just don’t add up either. The “mother’s chair” was just way too far from Route 413 to get a reflection. And one last thing, you could see it from either side (with Route 413 in front or behind you), which I have done, and we saw the ghost when no cars were coming down Route 413.
Updated 04-18-21. -Obiwan