Colorado officer meets the same roadside man twice, then the man vanishes
A caller named [name withheld], calling from Denver, tells what they call another Colorado law-enforcement ghost story about an unnamed veteran officer. The caller says that a couple of years earlier, the officer was on patrol on a misty night in a desolate part of Colorado. The officer stopped a man beside the road, questioned him, found he had no ID, and let him go. Twenty or thirty miles on, the officer met what they took to be the same man, who disappeared when the officer got out of the car to question him further. The caller offers no explanation and says only that they have the story on very good authority. The officer and the agency remain anonymous.
This clip comes from the source recording. AI chose where it starts and ends, so it may start or end a little early or late. The word-for-word transcript is not published. You can hear the source recording on the Internet Archive (file “Ghost to Ghost 1996.mp3”, starting at 2:35:29). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
The caller, [name withheld], “calling from denver,” tells Art Bell they have [quote withheld] and asks that both the officer and the agency stay anonymous. According to the caller, a couple of years earlier a veteran Colorado officer was on routine night patrol on a misty night. The officer was driving a road they knew well, through a rather desolate area they had not been in for many years. The officer saw a man walking or standing alongside the road, pulled over, and carried out a routine field interrogation. The man reportedly had no ID and gave a name that the caller says did not matter. He was found to have no weapons and was released because there was no reason to hold him. About twenty or thirty miles further on, the officer spotted another man beside the road. The caller stresses that the officer knew the area and had not turned back or become lost. The man came over to the car, and when he looked inside through the opposite window, the officer realized it was the same man. Taken aback, the officer got out, turned the lights on, and walked around the car to question him further, and the man was simply gone. The host repeats [quote withheld] and asks whether it is a true story. [name withheld] replies that they have it on very good authority. Art thanks the caller and remarks that this is one of many such stories from law enforcement.
Reported events, in order
- 0:23
The caller says a veteran officer in Colorado was on routine night patrol on a misty night in a desolate area of the state, driving a road they knew well and had not been on for many years.
- 0:36
The officer saw a man walking or standing alongside the road and pulled over to carry out a routine field interrogation.
- 0:51
The man reportedly had no identification and gave a name the caller says did not matter. He was released because the officer had no reason to hold him.
- 1:08
About 20 or 30 miles further along, the officer saw another man standing beside the road. The caller stresses that the officer knew the area and had not turned back or become lost.
- 1:27
The man came over to the patrol car and, looking in through the opposite window, was recognized by the officer as the same man.
- 1:43
Taken aback, the officer got out, turned the lights on, and walked around the car to question the man further. The man was gone.
- 1:53
Asked by the host whether it is a true story, the caller answers that they have it on very good authority. The host thanks the caller and remarks that there are many such law-enforcement stories.
Claims
Each claim is labeled as something the person telling the story noticed (observation), what they made of it (interpretation), something others told them (hearsay), or something the host said (host statement).
- interpretation· 0:08
The caller presents the story as another Colorado law-enforcement ghost story.
- hearsay· 0:36
The officer saw a man walking or standing alongside the road in a desolate part of Colorado at night.
- hearsay· 0:44
The officer pulled over and carried out a routine field interrogation of the man.
- hearsay· 0:51
The man had no identification and, after giving a name the caller says did not matter, was released.
- hearsay· 1:08
About 20 or 30 miles further along the road, the officer saw another man standing beside the road.
- hearsay· 1:27
When the man looked into the patrol car, the officer recognized him as the same man from the first stop.
- hearsay· 1:43
The officer got out and walked around the car to question him further, and the man was simply gone.
- interpretation· 1:53
The caller says the story is genuine and that they have it from a reliable source they do not name.
- host statement· 2:00
The host says that this is one of many such stories going around in law enforcement.
Scores, with reasons
An AI model gave these scores using a fixed set of scoring rules (scoring-v1). They are editorial judgments and rough guides, not the odds that anything paranormal happened. How scoring works.
My component estimate: source proximity 8 (secondhand through an unnamed authority), specificity 10, internal consistency 15, alternative explanations 7, calibration 7. The story is coherent and partly concrete. But it is hearsay at one remove, and an ordinary reading fits it comfortably, either two different men or a man who walked away. So it sits just above the [quote withheld] anchor rather than near it.
Evidence for and against
- A coherent, ordered story with no contradictions and answers that fit the sequence.
- Some concrete specifics: Colorado, [quote withheld] [quote withheld] a field interrogation, and an ID check.
- The caller heads off an obvious objection, stressing that the officer [quote withheld]
- The caller does not escalate. They dismiss the name the man gave as irrelevant and offer no identification of the figure.
- Entirely secondhand: neither the caller nor any named source is a witness ([quote withheld]).
- Key identifiers are withheld or vague: [quote withheld] and no town, road, name, or agency.
- An easy ordinary reading fits: two different people on the same road at night in mist, and a man who could have walked off in the dark before the officer rounded the car.
- No vehicle description, distance traveled, or time of night is fixed. The incident is short and lacks detail.
- The caller does not say whether their “very good authority” is the officer personally or someone in between.
- One line is garbled in the transcript ([quote withheld]), so it is unclear whether a search took place.
- The label showing who is speaking changes mid-answer. It is assumed to be the same caller.
- 0:23
- 1:17
- 1:53
What the model inferred (not said on air): The split between components and the weighting toward the 40 anchor are my own reasoning from the scoring guide, not statements in the transcript. I chose 8 rather than 0–7 for source proximity because the caller names an authority for the story, though that authority is not identified.
This is the ordinary case of the caller’s word alone, and here it is their word at one remove: nothing can be checked, nothing is produced, and nobody else speaks. It falls at the very bottom of the 0–10 band.
Evidence for and against
- The caller does name a type of source ([quote withheld]), though not a person who can be contacted.
- No document, photograph, recording, log, or report is claimed to exist.
- No second witness speaks on air. The officer and the caller’s informant are unnamed.
- No date, town, road, or agency is given, so nothing can be checked even in principle.
- The caller does not say who their authority is, so no chain of evidence can be described.
- 1:53
- 0:15
What the model inferred (not said on air): I treat the caller’s unnamed authority as adding no support that can be checked. Under the scoring guide, a claimed source who does not speak on air does not count as independent backing.
The story is eerie rather than frightening: a lone officer, a misty desolate road, a doubled encounter, and an unexplained disappearance, but with no menace, intrusion, or harm. That puts it a little below the “genuinely unsettling” anchor.
Evidence for and against
- The setting is a [quote withheld] on a misty night.
- The same man is reportedly met twice, twenty or thirty miles apart, which is unsettling in itself.
- The encounter ends abruptly with the man simply gone when the officer turns to question him.
- No explanation is given, so the episode is left unresolved.
- No threat, physical contact, or harm is reported at any point.
- The story is short and told at a distance, with no buildup or growing sensory detail.
- The host’s remark that such stories are common frames it as an anecdote, not a frightening episode.
- This score does not judge whether the caller told it lightly or seriously, since delivery is not scored.
- 1:43
- 0:40
What the model inferred (not said on air): The creepiness rating is my judgment of how the story would land on a listener, weighing the doubling and the vanishing against the lack of threat or escalation.
A familiar vanishing-stranger setup with one truly unusual detail: the same man stopped twice at widely separated points on the same road. The published value is compared with the rest of the archive. With few stories, that comparison carries little weight, so the score remains provisional.
Evidence for and against
- The distinctive element is the doubling: the same man is reportedly met twice, twenty or thirty miles apart, during routine police stops.
- The disappearance happens while the officer is actively getting out of their car to question the man, not as a distant sighting.
- A stranger met on a road who then disappears is a long-standing ghost-story staple.
- The setup is a night-shift officer on patrol, a familiar setting in law-enforcement ghost stories ([quote withheld]).
- Novelty compared with the rest of the archive cannot be judged from a single transcript. The figure is provisional.
- 1:27
- 1:08
What the model inferred (not said on air): The score is my own estimate of how distinctive the story is within the wider range of ghost stories. I cannot judge the comparison with the rest of the archive from this excerpt alone.
Scoring confidence 0.55 · analysis confidence 0.72 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller’s secondhand story only: [name withheld] relaying a story attributed to an unnamed officer; No documents, photograph, recording, report, or log is said to exist or is examined; No second witness speaks on air. The officer and the caller’s source are both unnamed. The originality score blends the model's score (50) with how rare the story's details are across the archive. This method is still provisional.
Ordinary explanations to consider
These are possibilities only. None is a finding about what happened.
- Two separate people were stopped on the same road, and the officer mistakenly took the second for the first. · The second encounter happens on “a misty night,” and the second man is described as [quote withheld] Two different people on the same road could look alike in poor light.
- The second man was a real person who left the roadside unseen while the officer was getting out of the car, so the spot looked empty when the officer walked around it. · The officer [quote withheld] before finding the man gone. A living person could simply have walked off into the dark or mist in that time.
- The story has been retold, and may have been shortened or embellished, as it passed from the officer to the caller. · The story is entirely secondhand ([quote withheld]), and the officer, the agency, and the informant are all withheld, so the details cannot be checked or corrected.
What stands out
The story turns on a doubling, not a single sighting. The officer is said to stop what they take to be the same man twice, twenty or thirty miles apart on the same road, and the figure disappears only when the officer gets out of their car to question him. The story is told entirely secondhand, with the officer, the agency, and the caller’s source all left unnamed.
Related stories
Matched by shared recurring details, categories, and wording.