The Lantern Man

Over a period of approximately 8 years I witnessed several rather spooky occurrence's until approx. 1 week after my fathers funeral. It had a lot to do with what I do for a job and the places I have to service. I have always been a sceptical person and always thought there is some sort of explanation for what I had seen. On 2 previous occasions I have written to Castle Of Spirits to share what I had experienced. That was several years ago when I was experiencing things on a regular occurrence. I thought at the time maybe it was a mistake to share these experiences as it was happening to me far too often. Since I haven't seen anything for several years I thought I would try to share some of my sightings. Today I will share with you all how I came across The Lantern Man.

I was coming back from working in the city at night and had my partner in the car with me. We turned right off the Princess Hwy in Oakleigh onto Warrigal Road. Probably 200mt before Atherton Rd where the Police Station is we both saw what looked like candle light swinging to and fro from the other side of the road. We said at the same time, "What is that". All of a sudden we saw a man dressed in period clothing walking quickly across the road He was carrying a lantern on a pole over his shoulder. I hit the brakes hard but it was too late. The man stepped out in front of the car and we drove straight thru him. The car came to a quick stop and my workmate and I got out of the car to look for what we thought would be a dead man. There was no one around or under the car. We looked all around but no one there. My workmates said I am sure we hit him and I said yes. We decided to go to the police station which was just down the road and report it. An officer came to the counter and we explained what had happened. He asked us if we had been drinking and we answered no we had just knocked off work and were heading home to get some sleep. We got asked several questions and it was all noted down by the officer. He and another officer came for a walk around the corner with us and looked at the area where we had seen the man with the lantern. They couldn't find anyone or anything. There was no sign of blood. They walked back to my vehicle and inspected it for damage. There was no damage. Not a scratch. They took our details and said they would be in contact if anyone turned up at the hospital. We heard nothing. Two weeks later our company sent us to do a job at the Oakleigh Police Station. There was no parking near the building so we parked the vehicle around the next corner and started walking with our tools thru the park to the Police Station. Neither of us had ever been though the park before and were surprised that there was a pioneer grave yard behind the Police Station directly in line with the grave yard. How do you explain that. We both saw the same thing. Around 3 years ago I was working at the police station again and came across an old sergeant working there. I was talking to him for quite some time and realised I had misplaced my phone. He said as a joke, 'Maybe the spooks from next door have absconded with it'. I asked him what he meant by that and he mentioned the grave yard. I told him about the night we saw the Lantern Man, he listened to my story and told me that several people over the years had dropped in claiming they had seen something crossing the road at night and a few of them had mentioned the Lantern Man. All I can say is "Wow"