April 28, 2022 • 33 mins
Content warning: this episode discusses material related to sexual assault.
What if it's not the past haunting us, but the present?
For decades, hair-raising rumours of a tormented soul haunting Wilfred Barrett Drive have put the Central Coast on the map for hosting one of the most haunted roads in New South Wales. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the Jenny Dixon ghost story and look at the cultural impact of urban legends as well as analyse the role folklore plays in societies.
Host and producer: Malin Hägglund
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
You are listening to seven Year Spectrum with me Malin
Heglund and this is a phantom hitchhiker on Australia's coast.
This episode contains conversations about sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I came to Norville when I was about about eleven.
Jenny Dixon at that stage to us was the girl
that had been hitch hyped and everything.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So we drove into the driveway of the cemetery and
then all of a sudden, like I just got this
feeling that like we shouldn't be there and we should
turn back.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
And then I looked back up and I saw this
woman standing on the driveway.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Getting caught up in the is it real or not?
This is the point of what the story is about,
what it's trying to communicate about the issue we haven't
had society.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Some people say that seeing is believing, and yet there
are things that you haven't seen but believe exist. So
what happens when you're the only one that can see.
In this episode of seven New Spectrum, we investigate the
alleged haunting of Jenne Dixon on the Central Coast in
New South Wales, Australia. The following story is based on
(01:54):
local legends and witness accounts. In March eighteen seven, an
article in Goldburn's local newspaper reads about a ship that
has been wrecked off the coast in Cabbage Tree Harbor.
At the time, coal production was at its prime in
New South Wales. Likewise the coastal trade, and as the
(02:17):
man grew, so did the amount of coal carrying ships
along the coastline. While many made their destination, some like
the one mentioned did not. The schooner in the article
was Janet Dixon, a one hundred tons coal carrying ship
that had traveled in conditions that only two days before
(02:40):
had been described as rain so thick as to obscure
everything beyond a short distance. Unlike some of its predecessors,
all of Janet Dixon's crew survived, and its bell was
salvaged and can be found today at Tuckley's Public Schools
Sanitary Garden. According to Greg Barry's Book of Shipwrecks in
(03:03):
New South Wales, the same wreck would later give name
to Noraville's Jeney Dixon Beach, a place that is known
today as one of the many haunted spots on the
central coast, and also where this story begins.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well yeah, like, I guess being a vocal we kind
of know the story about it, and it was starting
to get dark, and yeah, we were a mom like.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Well, let's go to the cemetery. And I was like,
oh okay, and yeah that joke. I was like, don't
say it.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's just like mucking around, because you know.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That's Sarah Rawlings. She's talking about the time when she
and her mom, Elizabeth, had driven to Norah Head to
dine over the lookout of Jenney Dixon Beach. The beach
lies one street away from the belief to be haunted
Wilfred Barrett Drive, and although there are many stories that
(03:58):
circulate as to why it's haunted, many lead back to
the beach itself. Some things is connected to the lives
claimed by shipwrecks or killings in the area over past decades. So,
whether you believe in the paranormal or not, the overwhelming
spread of witness reports of a young woman dressed in
(04:19):
white along the road would dant most drivers having to
pass the routes at night. Many claimed the woman to
be the victim of a fatal hitchhiking incident said to
have occurred in the nineteen seventy The story tells of
a young girl who was sexually abused at Genie Dixon
Beach after having been picked up by five guys on
(04:41):
the road. The young woman would later die from her
injuries and the abusers walked free. However, according to the legend,
all five men's freedom would within a year of her death,
follow of a series of strange accidents and suicides. The
girl has It's been referred to as Jenny Dixon, and
(05:03):
stories of the phantom Headshaker have been passed on until today.
It was just the beginning of autumn and they made
it to the spot just in time for the sunset.
Sarah is the spitting image of her mom, and the
pair hold a close relationship and are almost inseparable at times.
(05:24):
To also share something quite unusual to some. They say
they can't communicate with people who have passed Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
When I moved up this area like twenty three years,
I've never heard the story because it's about it's probably
about birting in its away from my place, and it
was my sister in law who said to me who
lived close to that there's supposed to.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
Be a woman, Jennie Dixon who gets into people's cars,
and I said, oh.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
You know, and I didn't really know the story of
what it was all about. And when we got in
the car getting that, so I said to my joy,
I just said jokingly. I just looked at her and
I said, Jenny Dixon, and.
Speaker 6 (06:08):
You know, my mom, don't say that, you know. Anyway,
we just took off and said we're driving, and I
said to her, let's go into the cemetery.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
We're only going to do like a quick driving driving out.
We're aren't going to kind of like stop because you
don't know who's there human why.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The Naurraville Cemetery was opened in the eighteenth century and
has over four hundred granite markers, having lived in the
community's folklore. It's today a place associated with the Jenny
Dixon urban legend. Stories claim she was buried at Noraville Cemetery,
but without a headstone. Some people even say that it
(06:50):
is a place where you can call on Jenny herself.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So we drove into the driveway of the cemetery and
then all of a sudden, like I just got this
feeling that like we shouldn't be there and we should
turn back. And it was a really kind of like
overwhelming feeling, and I.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Was like, oh, and I looked at.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Mom and she was like, yeah, yeah, let's go. And
then then she started telling me like she was describing
like a woman.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
She was there.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Still inside the car, Sarah and Elizabeth remained surrounded by
only the night sky. Sarah was behind the wheel and
Elizabeth in the seat next to her. Sarah says she
remembers having felt overwhelmed, and once she had seen the
look on her mother's face, she figured that something wasn't right.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And then I looked back up and I saw this
woman standing on the driveway and she had her arms outstretched,
like you're not coming here at all. And I said
to my daughter, just remember what.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
I'm telling you. I'm describing you as I'm looking at
the stool now.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And I described this story to my daughter and she
couldn't see the woman, and I said, I don't think
we're going to go in there, you know, because I
could kind of like get this telepathic feeling and hearing
you're not coming in here. And as my daughter drove reversed,
I looked at her back and she was sitting in
(08:16):
the seat behind my daughter driving, and you know what.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
I've all the spirits. Had I crossed over, moved on,
this woman would.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Not go and so she sat in the back of
the car and my daughter's going to please.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Mum, get her out, get her out.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
So we had this plan that we would like I
straightaway turned around because it's like a turning circle where
the gate is.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
And so at this point I'm like, oh, she's in
the car. Mom said she's in the car.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And I could feel like definitely someone was in the car.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Regardless of whether you.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
Believe in God, there are a few tools every respectable ghosts.
Speaker 8 (09:03):
Of our wife and mother, whose life in Sydney's western
suburbs has been anything but even falls.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
To so Ever, since I was a young child, I
was fascinated with death. I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
That's Kneading Gray, a paranormal investigator of ours a shell
together with a group of women called Haunted Down Andrew O.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
Yeah, I'm just sorting between f M and AM frequency.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
I'm just trying to find one.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
That works for the acoustics.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
The mount comment.
Speaker 9 (09:39):
Listen, here was the kids dormitory.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
It's just one feed through that.
Speaker 9 (09:43):
They all just helped it. That's it. Can you get and.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
In the program the group visited locations said to have
the paranormal activity and try to communicate with what she
refers to as the other side.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
I was always watching the ghost shows with my dad
growing up, and I got into paranormal investigating many years ago,
and from there we decided we wanted to try and
show other people what it's like to investigate. So we
had so many family and friends that wanted to come
with us that we just couldn't take everyone along. At
(10:42):
least this way, we got to film our adventures and
they got to watch it see what it was about,
and that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The show has attracted close to nine thousand subscribers on
YouTube and produced two seasons. Along with exclusive investigations, Followers
of their channel get to virtually come along into locations
believed to be haunted. To group then tries to communicate
or capture evidence on the other side with help from
(11:10):
a range of devices. Nadine explains that equipment varies on
what activity occurs at the location and that some devices
are known to be experimental, So.
Speaker 7 (11:22):
With the Oracle Box Mini, it's an experimental device. It
uses different inputs to try and communicate with the other side.
One of my favorite devices to use with that is
our spirit box, which uses white noise. It stands radio
channels at a rapid rate to create that endless band
of white noise so that spirits can communicate with it.
What that oracle box does is it takes out that
(11:45):
extra noise that makes it harder to hear, and we
just get the words all the sounds coming through instead.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
The spirit box is a common tool to come across
in paranormal investigations. In fact, the use of radio equipment
to contact spirits tracks back decades, and its result has
been recognized by some as peranormal evidence. The device is
believed to be triggered by electric magnetic frequencies, something that
(12:14):
spirits are believed to be able to manipulate to produce words.
Nadine categorized this device as experimental. She therefore likes to
use this type of equipment with other technologies so that
it's harder to debunk. An example would be to use
the spirit books together with this standard audio recorder.
Speaker 7 (12:36):
We hit the record button, we ask questions, we play
it back in real time. Then we hear a voice
that was there that wasn't ours. We didn't hear it
with our ears. That's harder to debunk, especially when the
camera captures just us talking and doesn't capture another voice talking.
So it depends on a lot of it is belief
as well, But in terms of debunking, the harder to
(12:56):
debunk to me, the more accurate the equipment's going to be.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
For Sarah and Elizabeth, communicating with spirits is different. They
say that they're not that familiar with technologies, but have
seen some used in TV shows.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
You're feeling that's what we're used for capturing the voice.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
They do, however, agree with Nadine that to some extent
belief it does play a role in paranormal investigations even
if you can see spirits or sense energies.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
For me, who knows, you're not there, You're not seeing it,
you know, because.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
We thought there was a real discrepancy between like these
machines were going off and they even had what's it called,
is it the word box, where like it says like
what the spirits are saying.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Like it comes up on the screen, And I think
so because.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
It was saying on the screen like they would have
one word like they were saying like high or dog
or something.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
Can you remember that yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And it was like Mum was like not even sensing
anything when it was all going off, and it was
really odd, like it was a discrepancy between like what
we're experience.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
See, you're also two with those kind of machines. If
you put your mobile phone near them, they go off.
So I don't see.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I don't know if spirit energy is exactly the same
as like the fields that those machines. I think they're trying,
but I don't know if it's picking up the exact
same like.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
It's really told somebody, oh yeah, this spirit saying there.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
They can't see it. They can't see what they're going.
Are you lying to me or you for real?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Back to that night on Wilfrid, Barrett drive inside the
car with Sarah and Elizabeth. Sarah continued to drive while
Elizabeth attempted to remove the spirit she says was sitting
in the back seat of their car. According to Elizabeth,
the spirit was different from any that she had handled before,
(14:55):
as she would not leave the car, or not just
yet at least.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
So we drove about probably four or five kilometers up
the road. I said to my daughter, part, he will
go across the coals.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
So we went into calls.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
For about fifteen minutes, and we came back out and
she received the backseat.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
Still she had it roomed, So then I.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Continue to drive towards time and it wasn't until we
got to way Rod that she all of a suddenly
jumped out. But yeah, it was pretty wild actually, looking.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Back at their experience, neither Sarah nor Elizabeth believes that
the spirit was evil, but according to Elizabeth, that doesn't matter.
She talks about boundaries and precaution and tells me that
there is a fine edge between dark and light and
that people who are not experienced don't understand that you
(15:55):
can't go to the dark side on anything.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
And her spirit was It wasn't angry or anything like that.
She was just surprising us by not moving on. And
so when we got home, my daughter and myself said
we're going to connect her and try and find out.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
What's not that we wanted to bring her back in,
it wouldn't have mattered because we would have been hopefully
sent her back away again.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
So we did like a meditation and we brought her
through and her reasoning to us what she was doing,
she said, I'm protecting all women, So I think the
reason why we couldn't pass her over across her over
(16:46):
was she had a journey to fulfil to protect women.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So whether it was Jenny Dixon from the urban legend
that Sarah and Elizabeth say to have encountered that night
on Wilford Beer Drive, no one can say for sure.
Speaker 9 (17:09):
However, I have heard the stories, heard the stories along them.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I've never seen big stories.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
We heard more frequently about Jenny Dixon's fust.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Stories of the phantom hitchhiker aren't just known among locals.
Multiple stories like Sarah's and Elizabeths have spread like wildfire.
But in between claim the encounters with the famous Jenny Dixon,
there's also people who haven't experienced anything. Local conveyancers Charmeay
(17:49):
Gormley have lived in the area for around thirty years
and traveled the road and been to the beach countless times,
but never seen anything.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I came to Norville when I was about tour about eleven,
so as kids, we would go to Jenny Dixon Beach
on a Friday or Saturday night for you know, beach parties,
which started when we were about fourteen until we're about seventeen,
because there was really nothing else to do.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
So I used to go to the beach parties.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
And sometimes you know, as kids, the graveyard was right
at the end of Brisbane Street, so we would go there.
And then as we all got to say about fourteen fifteen,
we heard more frequently about Jenie Dix than the ghost,
and so and then chose her grave was in the cemetery.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I got into contact with im through a two clear
Facebook page where I'd ask people for their thoughts on
the urban legend. While most respondents were familiar with the stories,
not all agreed with the ghost's existence.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
And there was always a big grave, a really old
one at the back of the cemetery, under this big tree.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
That's hers.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That's hers, and we'd be in there, that's hers, and
not having the concept that there are actually two different people.
Jenny Dixon at that stage to us was the girl
that had been oh hitch hyped and everything along that road.
But now I know that that grave is actually not hers.
But I remember standing in the cemetery and it's dark,
(19:27):
and even on Halloween we'd go down there, which probably
wasn't the brightest idea because it just put the willies uppers.
Speaker 9 (19:33):
Or wind uppers, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And the boys be I remember once two of the
boys were down right near that old grave with the.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
Torch and we're like, no, don't go any further. She's
going to get you.
Speaker 9 (19:45):
And if we'd all be running through the cemetery, you.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Know, Chowmaine to say start over time. The Jenny Dixon
stories she'd heard as a kid would become more than
one and then begin to insert twine the other stories.
She says that although she hasn't seen anything, she still
doesn't like to drive the roots.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I used to drive from the age of about twenty
for about ten years. I used to drive along that
road of the night because I worked at a restaurant
over at the entrance, so you could finish at two
o'clock in the morning. Ten So being a young girl
on that road of a night used to really freak
me out because I would be coming home from there
and I'd be tired, and it's such a dark, eery road.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
There's no street lights or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So I used to drive through there and go and
I've got cold chills, as I tell you, because I
would I'd have the doors locked and I would try
and have some music on to distract me. Because it's
so dark, and you don't want to speed because you
don't want to lose your license because then you can't
get to work. But you want to get through that
road as quick as possible, like just because you're worried
(20:52):
that you might see Jenny and what she's going to
do to you. Because the stories we're always told is
that there was a girl that had been hitchhiking, that
had been picked up by five guys and they had
or raped her and been quite horrible with her body,
and don't turn near the park plans, and each one
(21:14):
of them had died a serious death on their own accord.
So in her way of haunting them back, like said,
the mad shot themselves car accidents things like that. Now,
I believe that that's probably happened.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
But like many other topics, the supernatural will always be
a matter of debates, and the realm isn't small. For centuries,
ghosts have not only been passed on to generations, but
used as subjects in entertainment and even educational institutions. The
(21:48):
question wasn't always if they exist per se, but what
ghosts existence meant, and as conversations grew, analyzing their existence
in relation to humans, concerns about fundamental questions grew. Traditional
views that previously covered matters of soul spirits, and our
(22:08):
existence came under a threat from the rise of science.
According to doctor David Waldron, folklore and ghost stories have
cultural value and reflect issues and anxieties we have in
our societies.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
In the case of this the story of the lady
sexual assaulted and ultimately murdered at the Genie Dixon Beach
in that legend, I could go on about whether or
not that murder did it actually occur the way described,
or did it occur at that location. I could go
on about whether or not person has or hasn't had
(22:45):
that experience. But if you think about the way in
which that story reflects and constantly draws to attention with
the performance of the ghost story retelling the haunting experience,
that's an issue women have always had to face.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Doctor Waldron lives in Ballarat and teacher's history as a
senior lecturer at Federation University. His paper Playing the Ghost
looks at ghost hoaxing in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. The paper explores the link between ghost stories
and the cultural response to shared trauma. He says that
(23:23):
real life past tragedies can create folklore often because they
have enormous emotive power.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Where I live in Ballarat, there's a story of a
serial killer who hides in the mind shafts up and
Black Hill and the bush areas around Ballarat and kidnaps
women to assault them and kill them in mind shaft. Now,
there was an event sort of like that that happened
in the nineteen nineties, and the stories like that to
go back to the gold Rush. Now, while this particular
(23:54):
fellow didn't actually kill that young woman, she was ultimately
found and riskued by police. Later after he was released
in jail, he tried doing the same thing again and again.
This reflects to a very real issue and anxiety for
women have to face and mergers. And I think it's
not there's no small accident that most ghost stories, not all,
(24:16):
but many ghost stories most of them relate to atrocities
committed against young women.
Speaker 10 (24:27):
They came in their thousands, women, children and men in
a show of solidarity against the seemingly endless wave of
violent sexual crimes against women.
Speaker 11 (24:37):
They are a pair of somewhat bleat slightly cryptic messages
in a city festooned with billboards. Visual art student Nicole
Hans created the anti rape slogans with a six thousand
dollars grant from the National Agenda for Women.
Speaker 10 (24:51):
To The irony of a phone in held late last
year is that it revealed.
Speaker 11 (24:55):
Most victims still aren't prepared to pick up the phone
and it's believable.
Speaker 10 (25:00):
The huge crowd was entertained and informed by a wide
range of speakers and performers who stressed the need for
society as a whole to deal with the tragedy of rape.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
I feel free also to ask that the churches stop
teaching men that they have a god given right to
dominate women.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
New South Wales Attorney General Mark Spekman joy experience.
Speaker 12 (25:22):
So that's the problem we faced. In Australia, around one
in five women since the age of fifteen had been
the victims of sexual violence. Men and boys can be
the victims of sexual violence, but we know that overwhelmingly
the victims are women and girls. The Australian Bureau of Statistics
does regular personal safety surveys, and its most recent survey,
(25:43):
published in twenty seventeen, reported that eighteen percent of women
since the age of fifteen had been the victims of
sexual violence.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The Jenny Dixon urban legend is said to have roots
in the nineteen seventies, a decade remembered for social change,
the year when feminist research and advocacy would change the
approach and challenge misconceptions attached to sex crimes. It was
the year that sexual violence was developed into a concept
(26:21):
twenty years prior. In nineteen fifty, the residents of Tucley
were to receive news that would gain national coverage for
months leading after. On August thirty, a Wednesday morning, the
Sun's newspaper headlined the Girls found in swamp Murder feared.
(26:45):
Two girls of a migrant family that had escaped war
toward London for a better life had been found in
a swamp near Tucley. According to the National Advocates, the
girls planned to go to Norahead Lighthouse, but were never
seen after the accused was never found guilty and the
(27:05):
case remained cold In the days leading up to the funeral,
Funds were raised by the community to have the girls
buried at Noraville Cemetery, but the girls would only receive
a headstone in two thousand and fourteen, with help from
the initiative of a local to raise the funds. Even
(27:25):
if the murder of the Holmes sisters was more than
half a century ago, it has not been forgotten and
the incident has somehow become a branch of the Genie
Dixon urban legend most certain to be mentioned in relation
to each other. Earlier this year, Central Coast was crowned
the child's sex abuse capital of New South Wales by
(27:47):
The Daily Telegraph based on recent data. Only last year,
New South Wales Recorded Statistics showed that sexual assault has
increased since two thousand and sixteen. Another report from the
New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showed
that incidents have in fact increased since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
The threat of sexual assault at the beach, a place
you'd normally associated with joy and happiness and fun, becoming
a side of tragedy is against something you women always
have that Like if I talk to my students, you know,
young students, female students in the university, they always have
that fear when they're out late at night that a
(28:30):
man might want to assault them, hurt them or whatever.
That's constantly something in the back of the back of
their mind. It's something that we don't like to talk about.
It's something we sometimes cover up. It's something we make
excuses for the men to do these things, but it
constantly re emerges. That's a story. So you know that
story has enormous emotive power because there's something that happens,
(28:53):
something we don't like to acknowledge, but because again and
again getting caught up in the is it real or not?
This is the point of what the story is about,
what it's trying to communicate about the issues we have
in our society. An analogy I sometimes use for students
like this is is a friend of my wife's and
(29:14):
she has a story that when her mother passed on
that she woke up at night and saw her mother
sitting on the end of her bed and feeling scared
and saying I don't want to go and I love
you all those sort of things, and her being half
asleep and saying to her mother, oh, look it's okay,
I feel free to go, and her mother saying thank you,
and then finding out the next morning a mother had died. Now,
(29:37):
if I was to go, can you prove your mother
while sitting on your bed or not? That's totally missing
what that story is about.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Doctor Waldron says that urban legend or ghost stories can
only really vanish when the issue that led to capturing
the imagination has also vanished. He also says that stories
can separate from the communities that created them, and that
pop culture can influence how stories adapt and are told.
(30:08):
He draws examples of Australia's Yowie or bunyip, but also
vampires and witches, and says that besides having a past,
urban legends also need certain factors to survive.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
So it needs to connect to some sort of point
of anxiety, some sort of area that we feel uncomfortable.
It rattles our sense of a safe, ordered world that
operates according to certain rules that we feel comfortable with.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
We like the idea of a young woman happily moving
into adulthood, finding love and all the rest of it.
The idea of her dying at that limital point on
the cusp of adulthood evokes sensible stragedy that also relates
to the way in which we take to see women
as these objects to control and sexuality. There's a lot
(30:58):
of that sort of side of it. So does it
evoke and connect to an issue is it structured within
the framework of established cultural patterns, Like we've got notions
of what we think a ghost is. You know, if
I talk to someone he says they're haunted, they'll tell
me things like, oh, I felt cold down back of
my neck, I felt eerie. I you know what she
(31:19):
was wearing, like things like the wife or playing dress
being significant. She was just chatting to a friend about
this little whilego and said, you know, you very rarely
see ghosts with you know, dresses of bright colors and flares,
you know. So is it structured within our established folklore
of you know, what we think a ghost? So structured
(31:40):
within our culture, tied to some sort of pertinent issue
and tied to those in between spaces where we feel
awkward and uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Maybe we don't need to decide whether we believe in
the paranormal, but rather analyze stories, folk or an urban
legends to understand its deep rooting issues. So whether Wilfred
Barrett Drive is haunted will remain a mystery, and whether
it is Jennie Dixon or the urban legend that is
(32:14):
protecting women, I will leave up to you to decide. However,
the question is, would you drive alone on one of
Central Coast's most haunted roads at.
Speaker 8 (32:25):
Nights, no desecrated graves, murders, or former occupants.
Speaker 7 (32:31):
The thermal camera is the holy grail.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
There is no denying the topic captivates audiences all over
the world, and even this provides no answer.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
You have listened to seven U Spectrum, a phantom hitchhiker
on the Central Coast. This episode was produced and voiced
by me Marlin Heglund. A big thanks to Nadine Gray
for supplying recordings from Haunted down Under, and to Elizabeth,
Sarah Charmaine and doctor Waldron for sharing their stories and perspectives.
(33:10):
If you or someone you know is impacted bisexual assault,
domestic or family violence, call one eight hundred Respect on
eighteen Triple zero seven three seven seven thry two, or
visit one eight hundred Respect dot org dot a U.
In an emergency, call Triple zero
You are listening to seven Year Spectrum with me Malin
Heglund and this is a phantom hitchhiker on Australia's coast.
This episode contains conversations about sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I came to Norville when I was about about eleven.
Jenny Dixon at that stage to us was the girl
that had been hitch hyped and everything.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So we drove into the driveway of the cemetery and
then all of a sudden, like I just got this
feeling that like we shouldn't be there and we should
turn back.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
And then I looked back up and I saw this
woman standing on the driveway.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Getting caught up in the is it real or not?
This is the point of what the story is about,
what it's trying to communicate about the issue we haven't
had society.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Some people say that seeing is believing, and yet there
are things that you haven't seen but believe exist. So
what happens when you're the only one that can see.
In this episode of seven New Spectrum, we investigate the
alleged haunting of Jenne Dixon on the Central Coast in
New South Wales, Australia. The following story is based on
(01:54):
local legends and witness accounts. In March eighteen seven, an
article in Goldburn's local newspaper reads about a ship that
has been wrecked off the coast in Cabbage Tree Harbor.
At the time, coal production was at its prime in
New South Wales. Likewise the coastal trade, and as the
(02:17):
man grew, so did the amount of coal carrying ships
along the coastline. While many made their destination, some like
the one mentioned did not. The schooner in the article
was Janet Dixon, a one hundred tons coal carrying ship
that had traveled in conditions that only two days before
(02:40):
had been described as rain so thick as to obscure
everything beyond a short distance. Unlike some of its predecessors,
all of Janet Dixon's crew survived, and its bell was
salvaged and can be found today at Tuckley's Public Schools
Sanitary Garden. According to Greg Barry's Book of Shipwrecks in
(03:03):
New South Wales, the same wreck would later give name
to Noraville's Jeney Dixon Beach, a place that is known
today as one of the many haunted spots on the
central coast, and also where this story begins.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well yeah, like, I guess being a vocal we kind
of know the story about it, and it was starting
to get dark, and yeah, we were a mom like.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Well, let's go to the cemetery. And I was like,
oh okay, and yeah that joke. I was like, don't
say it.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's just like mucking around, because you know.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That's Sarah Rawlings. She's talking about the time when she
and her mom, Elizabeth, had driven to Norah Head to
dine over the lookout of Jenney Dixon Beach. The beach
lies one street away from the belief to be haunted
Wilfred Barrett Drive, and although there are many stories that
(03:58):
circulate as to why it's haunted, many lead back to
the beach itself. Some things is connected to the lives
claimed by shipwrecks or killings in the area over past decades. So,
whether you believe in the paranormal or not, the overwhelming
spread of witness reports of a young woman dressed in
(04:19):
white along the road would dant most drivers having to
pass the routes at night. Many claimed the woman to
be the victim of a fatal hitchhiking incident said to
have occurred in the nineteen seventy The story tells of
a young girl who was sexually abused at Genie Dixon
Beach after having been picked up by five guys on
(04:41):
the road. The young woman would later die from her
injuries and the abusers walked free. However, according to the legend,
all five men's freedom would within a year of her death,
follow of a series of strange accidents and suicides. The
girl has It's been referred to as Jenny Dixon, and
(05:03):
stories of the phantom Headshaker have been passed on until today.
It was just the beginning of autumn and they made
it to the spot just in time for the sunset.
Sarah is the spitting image of her mom, and the
pair hold a close relationship and are almost inseparable at times.
(05:24):
To also share something quite unusual to some. They say
they can't communicate with people who have passed Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
When I moved up this area like twenty three years,
I've never heard the story because it's about it's probably
about birting in its away from my place, and it
was my sister in law who said to me who
lived close to that there's supposed to.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
Be a woman, Jennie Dixon who gets into people's cars,
and I said, oh.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
You know, and I didn't really know the story of
what it was all about. And when we got in
the car getting that, so I said to my joy,
I just said jokingly. I just looked at her and
I said, Jenny Dixon, and.
Speaker 6 (06:08):
You know, my mom, don't say that, you know. Anyway,
we just took off and said we're driving, and I
said to her, let's go into the cemetery.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
We're only going to do like a quick driving driving out.
We're aren't going to kind of like stop because you
don't know who's there human why.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The Naurraville Cemetery was opened in the eighteenth century and
has over four hundred granite markers, having lived in the
community's folklore. It's today a place associated with the Jenny
Dixon urban legend. Stories claim she was buried at Noraville Cemetery,
but without a headstone. Some people even say that it
(06:50):
is a place where you can call on Jenny herself.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So we drove into the driveway of the cemetery and
then all of a sudden, like I just got this
feeling that like we shouldn't be there and we should
turn back. And it was a really kind of like
overwhelming feeling, and I.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Was like, oh, and I looked at.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Mom and she was like, yeah, yeah, let's go. And
then then she started telling me like she was describing
like a woman.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
She was there.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Still inside the car, Sarah and Elizabeth remained surrounded by
only the night sky. Sarah was behind the wheel and
Elizabeth in the seat next to her. Sarah says she
remembers having felt overwhelmed, and once she had seen the
look on her mother's face, she figured that something wasn't right.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And then I looked back up and I saw this
woman standing on the driveway and she had her arms outstretched,
like you're not coming here at all. And I said
to my daughter, just remember what.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
I'm telling you. I'm describing you as I'm looking at
the stool now.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And I described this story to my daughter and she
couldn't see the woman, and I said, I don't think
we're going to go in there, you know, because I
could kind of like get this telepathic feeling and hearing
you're not coming in here. And as my daughter drove reversed,
I looked at her back and she was sitting in
(08:16):
the seat behind my daughter driving, and you know what.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
I've all the spirits. Had I crossed over, moved on,
this woman would.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Not go and so she sat in the back of
the car and my daughter's going to please.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Mum, get her out, get her out.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
So we had this plan that we would like I
straightaway turned around because it's like a turning circle where
the gate is.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
And so at this point I'm like, oh, she's in
the car. Mom said she's in the car.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And I could feel like definitely someone was in the car.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Regardless of whether you.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
Believe in God, there are a few tools every respectable ghosts.
Speaker 8 (09:03):
Of our wife and mother, whose life in Sydney's western
suburbs has been anything but even falls.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
To so Ever, since I was a young child, I
was fascinated with death. I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
That's Kneading Gray, a paranormal investigator of ours a shell
together with a group of women called Haunted Down Andrew O.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
Yeah, I'm just sorting between f M and AM frequency.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
I'm just trying to find one.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
That works for the acoustics.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
The mount comment.
Speaker 9 (09:39):
Listen, here was the kids dormitory.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
It's just one feed through that.
Speaker 9 (09:43):
They all just helped it. That's it. Can you get and.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
In the program the group visited locations said to have
the paranormal activity and try to communicate with what she
refers to as the other side.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
I was always watching the ghost shows with my dad
growing up, and I got into paranormal investigating many years ago,
and from there we decided we wanted to try and
show other people what it's like to investigate. So we
had so many family and friends that wanted to come
with us that we just couldn't take everyone along. At
(10:42):
least this way, we got to film our adventures and
they got to watch it see what it was about,
and that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The show has attracted close to nine thousand subscribers on
YouTube and produced two seasons. Along with exclusive investigations, Followers
of their channel get to virtually come along into locations
believed to be haunted. To group then tries to communicate
or capture evidence on the other side with help from
(11:10):
a range of devices. Nadine explains that equipment varies on
what activity occurs at the location and that some devices
are known to be experimental, So.
Speaker 7 (11:22):
With the Oracle Box Mini, it's an experimental device. It
uses different inputs to try and communicate with the other side.
One of my favorite devices to use with that is
our spirit box, which uses white noise. It stands radio
channels at a rapid rate to create that endless band
of white noise so that spirits can communicate with it.
What that oracle box does is it takes out that
(11:45):
extra noise that makes it harder to hear, and we
just get the words all the sounds coming through instead.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
The spirit box is a common tool to come across
in paranormal investigations. In fact, the use of radio equipment
to contact spirits tracks back decades, and its result has
been recognized by some as peranormal evidence. The device is
believed to be triggered by electric magnetic frequencies, something that
(12:14):
spirits are believed to be able to manipulate to produce words.
Nadine categorized this device as experimental. She therefore likes to
use this type of equipment with other technologies so that
it's harder to debunk. An example would be to use
the spirit books together with this standard audio recorder.
Speaker 7 (12:36):
We hit the record button, we ask questions, we play
it back in real time. Then we hear a voice
that was there that wasn't ours. We didn't hear it
with our ears. That's harder to debunk, especially when the
camera captures just us talking and doesn't capture another voice talking.
So it depends on a lot of it is belief
as well, But in terms of debunking, the harder to
(12:56):
debunk to me, the more accurate the equipment's going to be.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
For Sarah and Elizabeth, communicating with spirits is different. They
say that they're not that familiar with technologies, but have
seen some used in TV shows.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
You're feeling that's what we're used for capturing the voice.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
They do, however, agree with Nadine that to some extent
belief it does play a role in paranormal investigations even
if you can see spirits or sense energies.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
For me, who knows, you're not there, You're not seeing it,
you know, because.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
We thought there was a real discrepancy between like these
machines were going off and they even had what's it called,
is it the word box, where like it says like
what the spirits are saying.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Like it comes up on the screen, And I think
so because.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
It was saying on the screen like they would have
one word like they were saying like high or dog
or something.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
Can you remember that yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And it was like Mum was like not even sensing
anything when it was all going off, and it was
really odd, like it was a discrepancy between like what
we're experience.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
See, you're also two with those kind of machines. If
you put your mobile phone near them, they go off.
So I don't see.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I don't know if spirit energy is exactly the same
as like the fields that those machines. I think they're trying,
but I don't know if it's picking up the exact
same like.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
It's really told somebody, oh yeah, this spirit saying there.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
They can't see it. They can't see what they're going.
Are you lying to me or you for real?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Back to that night on Wilfrid, Barrett drive inside the
car with Sarah and Elizabeth. Sarah continued to drive while
Elizabeth attempted to remove the spirit she says was sitting
in the back seat of their car. According to Elizabeth,
the spirit was different from any that she had handled before,
(14:55):
as she would not leave the car, or not just
yet at least.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
So we drove about probably four or five kilometers up
the road. I said to my daughter, part, he will
go across the coals.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
So we went into calls.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
For about fifteen minutes, and we came back out and
she received the backseat.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
Still she had it roomed, So then I.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Continue to drive towards time and it wasn't until we
got to way Rod that she all of a suddenly
jumped out. But yeah, it was pretty wild actually, looking.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Back at their experience, neither Sarah nor Elizabeth believes that
the spirit was evil, but according to Elizabeth, that doesn't matter.
She talks about boundaries and precaution and tells me that
there is a fine edge between dark and light and
that people who are not experienced don't understand that you
(15:55):
can't go to the dark side on anything.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
And her spirit was It wasn't angry or anything like that.
She was just surprising us by not moving on. And
so when we got home, my daughter and myself said
we're going to connect her and try and find out.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
What's not that we wanted to bring her back in,
it wouldn't have mattered because we would have been hopefully
sent her back away again.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
So we did like a meditation and we brought her
through and her reasoning to us what she was doing,
she said, I'm protecting all women, So I think the
reason why we couldn't pass her over across her over
(16:46):
was she had a journey to fulfil to protect women.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So whether it was Jenny Dixon from the urban legend
that Sarah and Elizabeth say to have encountered that night
on Wilford Beer Drive, no one can say for sure.
Speaker 9 (17:09):
However, I have heard the stories, heard the stories along them.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I've never seen big stories.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
We heard more frequently about Jenny Dixon's fust.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Stories of the phantom hitchhiker aren't just known among locals.
Multiple stories like Sarah's and Elizabeths have spread like wildfire.
But in between claim the encounters with the famous Jenny Dixon,
there's also people who haven't experienced anything. Local conveyancers Charmeay
(17:49):
Gormley have lived in the area for around thirty years
and traveled the road and been to the beach countless times,
but never seen anything.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I came to Norville when I was about tour about eleven,
so as kids, we would go to Jenny Dixon Beach
on a Friday or Saturday night for you know, beach parties,
which started when we were about fourteen until we're about seventeen,
because there was really nothing else to do.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
So I used to go to the beach parties.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
And sometimes you know, as kids, the graveyard was right
at the end of Brisbane Street, so we would go there.
And then as we all got to say about fourteen fifteen,
we heard more frequently about Jenie Dix than the ghost,
and so and then chose her grave was in the cemetery.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I got into contact with im through a two clear
Facebook page where I'd ask people for their thoughts on
the urban legend. While most respondents were familiar with the stories,
not all agreed with the ghost's existence.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
And there was always a big grave, a really old
one at the back of the cemetery, under this big tree.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
That's hers.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That's hers, and we'd be in there, that's hers, and
not having the concept that there are actually two different people.
Jenny Dixon at that stage to us was the girl
that had been oh hitch hyped and everything along that road.
But now I know that that grave is actually not hers.
But I remember standing in the cemetery and it's dark,
(19:27):
and even on Halloween we'd go down there, which probably
wasn't the brightest idea because it just put the willies uppers.
Speaker 9 (19:33):
Or wind uppers, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And the boys be I remember once two of the
boys were down right near that old grave with the.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
Torch and we're like, no, don't go any further. She's
going to get you.
Speaker 9 (19:45):
And if we'd all be running through the cemetery, you.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Know, Chowmaine to say start over time. The Jenny Dixon
stories she'd heard as a kid would become more than
one and then begin to insert twine the other stories.
She says that although she hasn't seen anything, she still
doesn't like to drive the roots.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I used to drive from the age of about twenty
for about ten years. I used to drive along that
road of the night because I worked at a restaurant
over at the entrance, so you could finish at two
o'clock in the morning. Ten So being a young girl
on that road of a night used to really freak
me out because I would be coming home from there
and I'd be tired, and it's such a dark, eery road.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
There's no street lights or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So I used to drive through there and go and
I've got cold chills, as I tell you, because I
would I'd have the doors locked and I would try
and have some music on to distract me. Because it's
so dark, and you don't want to speed because you
don't want to lose your license because then you can't
get to work. But you want to get through that
road as quick as possible, like just because you're worried
(20:52):
that you might see Jenny and what she's going to
do to you. Because the stories we're always told is
that there was a girl that had been hitchhiking, that
had been picked up by five guys and they had
or raped her and been quite horrible with her body,
and don't turn near the park plans, and each one
(21:14):
of them had died a serious death on their own accord.
So in her way of haunting them back, like said,
the mad shot themselves car accidents things like that. Now,
I believe that that's probably happened.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
But like many other topics, the supernatural will always be
a matter of debates, and the realm isn't small. For centuries,
ghosts have not only been passed on to generations, but
used as subjects in entertainment and even educational institutions. The
(21:48):
question wasn't always if they exist per se, but what
ghosts existence meant, and as conversations grew, analyzing their existence
in relation to humans, concerns about fundamental questions grew. Traditional
views that previously covered matters of soul spirits, and our
(22:08):
existence came under a threat from the rise of science.
According to doctor David Waldron, folklore and ghost stories have
cultural value and reflect issues and anxieties we have in
our societies.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
In the case of this the story of the lady
sexual assaulted and ultimately murdered at the Genie Dixon Beach
in that legend, I could go on about whether or
not that murder did it actually occur the way described,
or did it occur at that location. I could go
on about whether or not person has or hasn't had
(22:45):
that experience. But if you think about the way in
which that story reflects and constantly draws to attention with
the performance of the ghost story retelling the haunting experience,
that's an issue women have always had to face.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Doctor Waldron lives in Ballarat and teacher's history as a
senior lecturer at Federation University. His paper Playing the Ghost
looks at ghost hoaxing in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. The paper explores the link between ghost stories
and the cultural response to shared trauma. He says that
(23:23):
real life past tragedies can create folklore often because they
have enormous emotive power.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Where I live in Ballarat, there's a story of a
serial killer who hides in the mind shafts up and
Black Hill and the bush areas around Ballarat and kidnaps
women to assault them and kill them in mind shaft. Now,
there was an event sort of like that that happened
in the nineteen nineties, and the stories like that to
go back to the gold Rush. Now, while this particular
(23:54):
fellow didn't actually kill that young woman, she was ultimately
found and riskued by police. Later after he was released
in jail, he tried doing the same thing again and again.
This reflects to a very real issue and anxiety for
women have to face and mergers. And I think it's
not there's no small accident that most ghost stories, not all,
(24:16):
but many ghost stories most of them relate to atrocities
committed against young women.
Speaker 10 (24:27):
They came in their thousands, women, children and men in
a show of solidarity against the seemingly endless wave of
violent sexual crimes against women.
Speaker 11 (24:37):
They are a pair of somewhat bleat slightly cryptic messages
in a city festooned with billboards. Visual art student Nicole
Hans created the anti rape slogans with a six thousand
dollars grant from the National Agenda for Women.
Speaker 10 (24:51):
To The irony of a phone in held late last
year is that it revealed.
Speaker 11 (24:55):
Most victims still aren't prepared to pick up the phone
and it's believable.
Speaker 10 (25:00):
The huge crowd was entertained and informed by a wide
range of speakers and performers who stressed the need for
society as a whole to deal with the tragedy of rape.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
I feel free also to ask that the churches stop
teaching men that they have a god given right to
dominate women.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
New South Wales Attorney General Mark Spekman joy experience.
Speaker 12 (25:22):
So that's the problem we faced. In Australia, around one
in five women since the age of fifteen had been
the victims of sexual violence. Men and boys can be
the victims of sexual violence, but we know that overwhelmingly
the victims are women and girls. The Australian Bureau of Statistics
does regular personal safety surveys, and its most recent survey,
(25:43):
published in twenty seventeen, reported that eighteen percent of women
since the age of fifteen had been the victims of
sexual violence.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The Jenny Dixon urban legend is said to have roots
in the nineteen seventies, a decade remembered for social change,
the year when feminist research and advocacy would change the
approach and challenge misconceptions attached to sex crimes. It was
the year that sexual violence was developed into a concept
(26:21):
twenty years prior. In nineteen fifty, the residents of Tucley
were to receive news that would gain national coverage for
months leading after. On August thirty, a Wednesday morning, the
Sun's newspaper headlined the Girls found in swamp Murder feared.
(26:45):
Two girls of a migrant family that had escaped war
toward London for a better life had been found in
a swamp near Tucley. According to the National Advocates, the
girls planned to go to Norahead Lighthouse, but were never
seen after the accused was never found guilty and the
(27:05):
case remained cold In the days leading up to the funeral,
Funds were raised by the community to have the girls
buried at Noraville Cemetery, but the girls would only receive
a headstone in two thousand and fourteen, with help from
the initiative of a local to raise the funds. Even
(27:25):
if the murder of the Holmes sisters was more than
half a century ago, it has not been forgotten and
the incident has somehow become a branch of the Genie
Dixon urban legend most certain to be mentioned in relation
to each other. Earlier this year, Central Coast was crowned
the child's sex abuse capital of New South Wales by
(27:47):
The Daily Telegraph based on recent data. Only last year,
New South Wales Recorded Statistics showed that sexual assault has
increased since two thousand and sixteen. Another report from the
New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showed
that incidents have in fact increased since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
The threat of sexual assault at the beach, a place
you'd normally associated with joy and happiness and fun, becoming
a side of tragedy is against something you women always
have that Like if I talk to my students, you know,
young students, female students in the university, they always have
that fear when they're out late at night that a
(28:30):
man might want to assault them, hurt them or whatever.
That's constantly something in the back of the back of
their mind. It's something that we don't like to talk about.
It's something we sometimes cover up. It's something we make
excuses for the men to do these things, but it
constantly re emerges. That's a story. So you know that
story has enormous emotive power because there's something that happens,
(28:53):
something we don't like to acknowledge, but because again and
again getting caught up in the is it real or not?
This is the point of what the story is about,
what it's trying to communicate about the issues we have
in our society. An analogy I sometimes use for students
like this is is a friend of my wife's and
(29:14):
she has a story that when her mother passed on
that she woke up at night and saw her mother
sitting on the end of her bed and feeling scared
and saying I don't want to go and I love
you all those sort of things, and her being half
asleep and saying to her mother, oh, look it's okay,
I feel free to go, and her mother saying thank you,
and then finding out the next morning a mother had died. Now,
(29:37):
if I was to go, can you prove your mother
while sitting on your bed or not? That's totally missing
what that story is about.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Doctor Waldron says that urban legend or ghost stories can
only really vanish when the issue that led to capturing
the imagination has also vanished. He also says that stories
can separate from the communities that created them, and that
pop culture can influence how stories adapt and are told.
(30:08):
He draws examples of Australia's Yowie or bunyip, but also
vampires and witches, and says that besides having a past,
urban legends also need certain factors to survive.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
So it needs to connect to some sort of point
of anxiety, some sort of area that we feel uncomfortable.
It rattles our sense of a safe, ordered world that
operates according to certain rules that we feel comfortable with.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
We like the idea of a young woman happily moving
into adulthood, finding love and all the rest of it.
The idea of her dying at that limital point on
the cusp of adulthood evokes sensible stragedy that also relates
to the way in which we take to see women
as these objects to control and sexuality. There's a lot
(30:58):
of that sort of side of it. So does it
evoke and connect to an issue is it structured within
the framework of established cultural patterns, Like we've got notions
of what we think a ghost is. You know, if
I talk to someone he says they're haunted, they'll tell
me things like, oh, I felt cold down back of
my neck, I felt eerie. I you know what she
(31:19):
was wearing, like things like the wife or playing dress
being significant. She was just chatting to a friend about
this little whilego and said, you know, you very rarely
see ghosts with you know, dresses of bright colors and flares,
you know. So is it structured within our established folklore
of you know, what we think a ghost? So structured
(31:40):
within our culture, tied to some sort of pertinent issue
and tied to those in between spaces where we feel
awkward and uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Maybe we don't need to decide whether we believe in
the paranormal, but rather analyze stories, folk or an urban
legends to understand its deep rooting issues. So whether Wilfred
Barrett Drive is haunted will remain a mystery, and whether
it is Jennie Dixon or the urban legend that is
(32:14):
protecting women, I will leave up to you to decide. However,
the question is, would you drive alone on one of
Central Coast's most haunted roads at.
Speaker 8 (32:25):
Nights, no desecrated graves, murders, or former occupants.
Speaker 7 (32:31):
The thermal camera is the holy grail.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
There is no denying the topic captivates audiences all over
the world, and even this provides no answer.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
You have listened to seven U Spectrum, a phantom hitchhiker
on the Central Coast. This episode was produced and voiced
by me Marlin Heglund. A big thanks to Nadine Gray
for supplying recordings from Haunted down Under, and to Elizabeth,
Sarah Charmaine and doctor Waldron for sharing their stories and perspectives.
(33:10):
If you or someone you know is impacted bisexual assault,
domestic or family violence, call one eight hundred Respect on
eighteen Triple zero seven three seven seven thry two, or
visit one eight hundred Respect dot org dot a U.
In an emergency, call Triple zero
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