Ghost? Glare? Arizona trucker shares footage of chilling sighting

A truck driver passing through Arizona says his dash cam appears to have caught what looks like a ghost – but of course, that's unconfirmed.

William Church said he was driving on SR 87 near mile marker 200 around 2:30 a.m. on March 11 when he passed by a transparent figure standing on the side of the road.

Church says he was between Phoenix and Payson with no cars in sight.

He described the figure as "just standing in the roadway as I passed by looks like you can see the lines through the legs making the figure."

SR 87 has seen its fair share of deadly car crashes as it's one of the state's main highways to get to and from mountain communities.

Drivers speak out

On Mar. 14, days after the photo captured the attention of many, we spoke with two people who saw it first: the truck driver who thought it was a human, and another person sitting in the passenger seat who thought it was a ghost.

"I actually twitched the wheel to miss whoever it was," said Church.

At the time it all unfolded, Church had taken over a driving shift from Erika Lake.

"At first, I thought it was a human, and then when you can't really see the face and the top of the body up, I wondered what, and we were thinking maybe it was a ghost," said Lake.

Church took a closer look when they reached their next rest stop.

"We don't know if it was a person or something spiritual or something, but it was in a form of a human. That's all i know," said Church.

UArizona Professor Emeritus weighs in

The video had many people questioning what they saw, and on Mar. 14, Jerrod Hogle, a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Arizona, talked about the footage.

"There could be another explanation, but there's also the possibility, like, with flying objects," said Hogle. "It could be from alien places. They could be supernatural, or this could be a ghostly figure."

Hogle, who is an international authority on Gothic literature, said he has studied sightings from the 19th Century that are similar to what the video shows.

"It's appealing to think that it might be supernatural, but there's also a possibility of another explanation, and it's sort of fun to be on the cutting edge of one or the other without having to decide," said Hogle.