TOLL road firm Transurban has left out key details in the announcement of its $815 million purchase of the Pocahontas Parkway in Richmond, Virginia.
Transurban managing director Kim Edwards on Wednesday boasted the road in the former Confederate capital was "a very good acquisition".
On the surface it all looked swell, with the road reporting a 6 per cent lift in traffic volumes last year.
But Edwards did not tell the full story of the 14 kilometre road, which is near Richmond International Airport. The Pocahontas Parkway is perhaps the most haunted toll road in the US, even the world. There have been frequent sightings of Algonquian Indian ghosts chanting around the Parkway.
Richmond's Times-Dispatch newspaper was quick to report several sightings soon after the road opened in 2002.
There was one account of a truck driver and toll-booth operator who both witnessed several unfriendly torch-wielding Algonquian spirits staging a protest - possibly over the road being constructed over their village. The truck driver had to warn off the ghosts with his horn. Who said protests over road links could only be staged by the living? The Times-Dispatch also noted sightings of subjects running around with fully formed torsos but only the "vaguest outline of a head".
The beating of Indian drums and high-pitched howls can occasionally be heard. The website paranormalplus.com has conducted its own investigation into the Pocahontas Parkway.
Paranormal Plus noted there had been suspicions the sightings may have "been a clever publicity stunt to get exposure for the expensive toll road and get it off to a good start".
But after "one night on a lark", it took Paranormal Plus little time to come across the spirit of a great white wolf that overlooked the Indians buried in the area. It even spotted the spirits of Indians in the form of foxes, beavers and coyotes lurking around the road.
Paranormal Plus investigator Ben Keys jnr - who happens to speak a little Algonquian - said he saw "one mean-looking face of a sort none of us would dare identify".
Keys happens to have "real" pictures of bigfoots, ghosts and UFOs on his website. "The Indians must have understood my attempt to communicate with them in their ancient language and thought I was here on their behalf to challenge the Parkway's right to disturb their eternal rest," Keys jnr said.
Spook spotting
Keys jnr noted there were "a few diehards" who still went to the Parkway in an attempt to spot a ghost. "Those poor souls can still be occasionally found parked on the side roads and overpasses each night, as bleary-eyed as ever, waiting and hoping for that a once-in-a-lifetime sighting to take place."
Transurban management have gone into damage control amid talk they could come under investigation for failing to come clean on the strange events on the Pocahontas Parkway.
"Transurban considered whether the information was material and decided it was not obliged to disclose the speculation over the paranormal happenings as it was not considered price sensitive," a company spokesman said.
But Reflux is not convinced. For one, can you remember any Hollywood movie involving an Indian burial ground that ever had a happy ending? Jack Nicholson did not fare too well in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
And though Reflux has not seen it, Pet Sematary did not appear to be a feel-good movie. And don't forget The Amityville Horror.
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/gho ... tml?page=2
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