Resurrection Mary

I have been entertaining myself this evening reading up on local haunts and legends in and around the state of Illinois. One of the most intriguing (and from right here in Chicago on Archer Avenue) is one you've all heard before. A driver is headed down a dark stretch of road late one night. They notice a beautiful but forlorn and pale female by the side of the road and offer her a ride. She orders the driver to stop and let her out at the cemetery, and is gone before the driver knows what has happened. It that same old hitchhiker story that's been around since the horse and buggy days, but this one has some interesting peculiarities. First of all this "ghost" (using the quotes because I am not prepared to commit to the full usage of the term) who has been given the name Resurrection Mary, has been spotted hundreds of times, and by all sorts of people. Some poor fellas have even picked her up at dance clubs in the area only to have her vanish into the air around the cemetery. She is always a striking blond with a weathered looking white dress. One guy in particular, James Palus has a particularly thorough encounter to relate. There is also an alleged account of Mary bending and partially melting the bars of the cemetery gate with her ghostly hands, but the owners maintain that a sewer truck backed into it and left the marks while trying to heat up the metal with an acetylene torch to push the bars back into place. You be the judge.

via Wikipedia
Prarie Ghosts
and Weird Illinois