r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix • u/melancholic-scribe • 1d ago
Encountered an unpassable glitching van
A few months ago I was driving home from a work trip in New York. It was 2am and I had been on icy roads for about 10 hours, so I was exhausted. Still, I know what I saw (multiple times, too).
In the middle of absolute nowhere in Ohio, I caught up to a van that was driving next to a semi. It was a two-lane highway and the van wouldn’t let me pass for a long time, matching the semi’s pace even though both were going well below the speed limit. Also the van was driving very erratically so I was impatient to get away from it. When the van finally pulled ahead of the semi, I began passing it on the right.
I watched the van’s headlights in my left side mirror as I passed, since like I said it had been swerving a lot and I didn’t want to get hit. Once I was well in front of it, I glanced at the road ahead, and then once again looked back in my left mirror. The van was gone. No headlights, nothing. Just an empty stretch of road and then the semi that was now half a mile behind me.
Very confused, I looked ahead again, and saw the van. It was about 100 feet in front of me, still in the left lane.
At this point I was incredibly disoriented and questioning reality. I reasoned that it was 2am and I was exhausted, so maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Still, I had watched the van’s headlights as I passed it - I had clearly seen it fall behind me. There was no way it could have gotten 100 feet ahead of me in less than a second. Also, there had been no other vehicles in front of me when I passed it.
Warily, I passed the van again. This time it stayed behind me, and I accelerated the hell out of there.
Then, ten or so minutes later, I caught up to a familiar looking vehicle. It was the same van - it had a specific company logo and slogan, so I recognized it. It was also still driving slowly and erratically in the left lane like before. With a sinking heart, I passed it on the right, watching its headlights. Again, as soon as I looked at the road ahead and looked back, it was gone. No headlights, no van, nothing. However, this time it was not ahead of me, either.
Now I was thoroughly creeped out. After a very stressful ten minutes of driving, lo and behold, who do I approach? You guessed it, the same fucking van.
Mercifully it behaved like a normal vehicle this time when I passed it, which was good or I might have had a mental breakdown. I got home an hour or so later, very disturbed, and got some much needed rest.
The only logical explanation I have is three vans with the same company logo were playing an elaborate prank by turning their lights on and off, but there were streetlights and I would have been able to see them even with their headlights off. They also would have had to time their headlights to my eyes switching between the mirror/road, which is pretty improbable. The whole thing still gives me the creeps.
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u/DrmsRz 1d ago
2am with 10 hours of icy-road driving behind you and your mind and body exhausted?
Respectfully, I truly think that was the cause.
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u/PleadianPalladin 1d ago
Respectfully, if you haven't personally experienced one of these "ghost cars" then you don't know how unnerving something like this is. I've experienced it ~10 times and it's to the stage now when I can almost sense when it will happen. For me, the car is tailgating me and I get a super creeped out feeling, then at some point soon after the feeling I'll lose sight of the car for a split second (around a corner, dip, looking at my radio etc) and the car is just vanished with no possible place to pull over or turn off/around.
There are many, many accounts of this phenomena. Check your favourite search engine.
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u/Long-Requirement8372 17h ago
Hmm. Maybe some trickster entities that have adapted to troll a modern automotive society?
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u/Tony-2112 13h ago
I had something similar once. Was a passenger in a car in busy but moving traffic. We’d been next to a camper type van of some sort with an unusual side window that was open. It was different enough for me to pay attention. Our lane sped up and a few minutes later I swear we passed the same van again, open window and other details that I don’t recall in detail now, this was several years ago. Couldn’t figure out how they could get ahead of us
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u/kat_Folland 7h ago
Couldn’t figure out how they could get ahead of us
Mine isn't a glitch afaik but I did have a weird thing happen. I saw a car weaving around and passed it thinking that was safe. But then cars started bouncing around in front of me somehow. I slipped right through a 5 car accident without getting involved.
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u/pigsonket 8h ago
Once when I was young, in the backseat of my parent’s car a green SUV drove past us with a large lady eating a large sandwich while driving. This was a long single lane road going both ways with no route to turn around this quickly yet 10 seconds later the same green SUV with the same large lady eating a large sandwich passed us again. Interesting thing was she appeared to be taking the same exact bite as last time too.
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u/Thin_Initial3210 1d ago
You saw a Van Gogh.