Highway To Hell?

  No, this title does not refer to the album by AC/DC, it refers to one of the names that U.S. Highway 666 went by before the renumbering. This highway of legend and lore has had alot of stories told about it, some of them unexplained to this day while other stories are evidently more prosaic. I will now talk about some of the stories told about highway 666 and then, after that, I will give my own personal thoughts about it and that might take more than one blog entry.
  Satan's Sedan--There are alot of stories that have been told about an ominous black sedan that terrorized people. This sedan "did its work" beginning at sunset. This black sedan, it is said, would charge at people that were driving on the highway.  It would gain on people, no matter how fast they drove. Sometimes it would speed past them after frightening the occupants of the car. Sometimes it would tailgate people for miles. Sometimes it would speed past them and then turn around, aiming its high beams directly in the face of oncoming drivers, and charge them at a high rate of speed. Many people were so terrified that they would run off the road. Of the people that ran off the road, some say the black sedan would just keep speeding past them, some say it just vanished. Other people have reported that the black sedan would be just a foot or so behind them shining its high beams at them and then it would just disappear.
Mad Trucker -- Allegedly, there was a semi truck that roamed from one end of the highway to the other that despised anything living and would deliberately aim at people, causing them to drive off the road, sometimes with fatal results. Sometimes, it is said, that this semi truck would be on fire when it was heading towards a person's car.
Hounds of Hell --These dogs were said to wander along highway 666. It is said that they could run as fast as a car and that their razor sharp teeth could shred tires, even steel belted radials. It is also said that if anyone was driving with their window down that the Hounds of Hell would jump into cars and maul people. I am not sure what kind of dogs these were supposed to be, but every time I think of the story, I think of dobermans.
Pale Spirit -- There are many stories of a young girl, about 10 years old, that would stand along the highway with a very sad, forlorn expression on her face. The girl would always have tears in her eyes. When people would stop to see what was wrong, she would simply vanish in front of their eyes.
Spirits of Navajo Skinwalkers -- It is said that Navajo Indians would shapeshift into animals right in front of cars and cause people to either crash or run off the road. It is also said that Navajo medicine men or spirits of long dead Navajo Indians would suddenly appear in the back seat of a person's car. Sometimes these spirits would threaten the occupants of the car, sometimes they would warn the driver not to proceed because there was danger ahead.
Mysterious Loss of Time -- There are hundreds of cases along highway 666 of people experiencing a mysterious loss of time. For example, it takes 1 1/2 hours to drive from Gallup to Shiprock, New Mexico, a distance of 93 miles, but there are many cases of people arriving in Shiprock after three or four hours and they would have no explanation for why it take so long to get there. They drove the speed limit and did not experience any traffic delays, and yet it took them an inordinate amount of time to drive the 93 mile distance. There is one case where it took a person 5 hours and 15 minutes to drive from Shiprock to Gallup and that person has no idea why. He went the speed limit the whole way, there was no road construction to slow him down and there were no other traffic delays.
Strange Disappearances -- Many people have disappeared without a trace on highway 666. In some cases the car was found but the occupant(s) were missing. In other cases, a person or even a car would disappear only to reappear miles down the road. In other cases, there is no evidence that the person was ever on the road at all. The person was seen leaving town, the car or person are not at home, but they are nowhere to be found and their whereabouts are still unknown.