Interstate 4 ranks among the world’s most haunted roads. Here’s why

SANFORD, Fla. – With Halloween right around the corner, car rental company Sixt shared a study examining the most haunted roads around the world.

To put this list together, researchers looked at Google and TikTok search trends for different road names relating to “ghost” terms.

From there, they reviewed the Ghosts of America website to find out which states had the most roadside ghost sightings.

After putting together the data, Sixt revealed that Florida’s very own Interstate 4 ranked No. 13 globally — and No. 5 nationwide.

“Florida’s Interstate 4 ranks as the second-most haunted road in the U.S.,” a spokesperson for Sixt told News 6. “Locals claim it’s not just haunted, but possibly cursed. The road features a ‘dead zone’ where cell phone and radio signals vanish, and drivers often report seeing apparitions and a mysterious floating ball of light.”

[BELOW: Here’s what to know about Sanford’s “Dead Zone” on I-4]

The rumors about the interstate aren’t anything new, though.

This supposedly haunted “Dead Zone” refers to a quarter-mile stretch of I-4 found along the southern part of the bridge across the St. Johns River.

It was brought into the public consciousness thanks to the late Sanford historian Charlie Carlson, who discussed the Dead Zone in his book “Weird Florida” back in 2005.

“People are claiming to see all kinds of things — orbs floating across the highway, apparitions on the side of the road hitchhiking, phantom trucks, you name it,” Carlson wrote.

According to Carlson, the legends stem back to the late 1800s, when Henry Sanford, head of the Florida Land and Colonization Company, planned to start up a Roman-Catholic community called Saint Joseph’s Colony.

However, an outbreak of yellow fever killed four German immigrants in the colony, and with the only priest being away in Tampa at the time (he later succumbed to yellow fever himself), the bodies were buried in the woods with no last rites, Carlson states.

But Carlson claimed that when I-4 construction came through in 1960, fill dirt was dumped on top of the graves to help elevate the highway.

Since then, the site was struck by Hurricane Donna (the storm’s eye supposedly moved directly over the graves), a tractor-trailer truck carrying frozen shrimp jackknifed right above the graves on the opening day of Interstate 4, and some have claimed to see “wispy balls of light that zigzag just above the pavement,” Carlson noted.

As for the name, the “Dead Zone” got its moniker thanks to its reputation for lacking cell reception in that area of the interstate.

Despite the grim myths surrounding the highway, it turns out the truth of this story is a bit more down-to-earth.

Earlier this year, News 6 spoke with author and historian Mark Muncy, who used to work alongside Carlson when it came to researching Strange Florida stories.

Munch explained that the whole legend actually stemmed from an old grudge over the land that the interstate was built on.

As Muncy told it, the land had been owned by Carlson’s father, but a family member was injured at some point in a tractor accident near an old gravesite on the plot.

“So they came up with this story that, ‘Oh, it must be cursed! It must be haunted!’ — that sort of thing,” Muncy said. “It was just a family tale, right?”

However, when the I-4 project kicked off, state records show that the land was taken from Carlson’s father.

“They eminent domain that portion of his family land, and Charlie’s dad never forgave them,” Muncy explained. “And so Charlie never forgave them.”

As a result, Muncy claimed, Carlson crafted the legend of the “Dead Zone” on I-4 as a small act of revenge.

“Some people have spotty cell reception there, but that’s because it’s between Sanford and Cassadaga...” Muncy said. “It’s already got a kind of weird reputation because Cassadaga, so there’s some truth to that.”

Carlson himself passed away in 2015 of multiple myeloma cancer. Known as the “Master of Weird,” he specialized in writing about paranormal and strange places and events from all across the state.

In the meantime, the top 20 most haunted U.S. roads on Sixt’s list are as follows: