Dark Figure Or Void In The Fog

This is a very short story (so I've fleshed it out a bit), and I am wondering if anyone has witnessed anything similar.

In 2004 I moved to a small village south of Chester, England and worked in another village in Chester, some 20 miles away. Late in the year, November / December time, I was driving home on the country lanes, it would have been nearly 6pm. I remember it being a misty/foggy night and as I neared my village I saw a dark figure walking towards me on my side of the road. There was an on-coming car on the other side of the road and I could see the silhouette of the figure in the other cars headlights, although my headlights failed to illuminate the front of this figure I was seeing. All that happened within just a few seconds and as I thought the figure was a real person and there was an oncoming car, I slammed my brakes on for an 'emergency stop'. The oncoming car passed and continued on its way and I saw no one where the figure had been. A little worried I got out of my car and had a look around and still couldn't see anyone. There were no woods to disappear into, or anything like that - just fields.

As I got back into my car I looked at the road sign in front of me warning of a sharp-right bend in the road. Had the dark void in the mist been the shadow of the road sign in the other cars headlights? I assumed so, for just a moment - for at that point another car came round the bend and I watched the shadow of the road sign as the other car came round the corner. Yes, it was a dark void, but it was not person shaped and my headlights continued to illuminate the front of it that I could see. Perplexed I set off again and was home within a couple of minutes. I told this to my girlfriend. We thought little more of it than an optical illusion and settled down for a normal night in.

A week or so later my girlfriend and I were driving back from Chester one evening and we both saw a very similar thing. It was quite misty and while driving along main road through a residential area (other cars, street lights, etc) we saw a dark figure cross the road in front of us - just like a person but it was like a void in the mist that didn't reflect the headlights as much as the rest of the mist does. We both thought it was wired and probably a trick of the light.

A week or so later, while the two of us were driving along a country lane it happened again - I didn't see it this time, but my girlfriend did.

A week or so after that while driving home my brakes failed and I almost had a very nasty car accident (probably unrelated).

Two weeks later (around Christmas time) my girlfriend and I split up and I moved out of the area.

These sightings have remained in my memory for a long time and for ages the area south of Chester had been the only place I had ever seen such phenomenon - and only in Cheshire have I known such dense fog and mist (usually at night).

Were these voids in the mist spiritual entities? Were they warning me of something? The visions did mark the start of a very unhappy time in my life. A period of time that only really started to improve when I delved further into spiritualism and really started to think about the spirit world in much more depth.

I have seen these dark voids in the mist once or twice since then - shortly after meeting the woman who is now my wife - and the one time that sticks in my mind the most is seeing a dark figure cross a busy road behind me - I watched in my rear-view mirror as the headlights from the car behind failed to light up part of the fog in the shape of a person.

I would be really interested to hear of any similar experiences. Mine have only been while driving - maybe a trick of the light - or maybe because I don't go walking round country lanes at night with a torch as bright as my car headlights. I'm open to discussion, opinions and answers!