The Nason Street overpass crosses Interstate 215 in Moreno Valley, Riverside County. The structure dates to the 1950s and is a standard freeway overpass with no particular architectural distinction.
The legend attached to the site describes a bus full of children that broke down on the overpass and was struck by a large diesel truck, pushing it over the edge. In the story, there were no survivors. The spirits of the children, the legend continues, will push any car left in neutral on the southbound approach up and over the overpass.
A 1996 study on 'gravity hills' conducted by researchers at UC Riverside addressed this specific location. The study found that the slope involved is actually a gentle downhill grade — the car rolls downhill, not uphill. The perception that it is rolling uphill is produced by the visual relationship between the road and the surrounding trees and terrain, which create a consistent spatial illusion. The phenomenon is well-documented in road psychology and appears at dozens of similar locations across the United States.
No newspaper archive, court record, or accident report has been located documenting a bus-truck collision at the Nason Street overpass. A KPCC radio report from 2013 about 'haunted overpasses' referenced the Nason Street location and specifically noted the absence of verified historical accident data.
Sources
- https://archive.kpcc.org/blogs/news/2013/06/01/13863/haunted-overpass-hampers-freeway-traffic/
- https://scaryhq.com/haunted-nason-street-moreno-valley-california/
Phantom soundsPhantom footstepsDisembodied laughterPoltergeist activity
The Nason Street legend is one of the most elaborately developed 'ghost children push cars' stories in California, a subgenre of regional road legend that appears at gravity hills across the state and country.
The account specifies the mechanism: park heading south on the approach to the overpass, shift to neutral, and wait. The car moves. The legend attributes this to the children's spirits, and adds that baby powder spread on the rear of the vehicle will preserve the imprints of small hands and feet after the experience — a detail that appears in virtually identical form in the San Antonio, Texas version of the same legend type, and in at least a dozen other gravity hill accounts in California alone.
The UC Riverside study established that the grade is a genuine downhill slope — the car is rolling with gravity, not against it. The trees and road geometry produce a consistent inversion of the visual field, making the downhill appear uphill.
Sometimes laughter and footsteps are reported in the vicinity late at night, which are among the more specific paranormal claims attached to the site beyond the car-rolling phenomenon itself.
