More than a half dozen Japanese taxi drivers claimed earlier this year to have had ghostly customers. They report that all seems like a normal fare until the phantom passengers mysteriously vanish from the back seat before arriving at their destination. According to a February 7 story on MSN.com:
At least seven taxi drivers in Ishinomaki, north-east Japan, have reported experiencing a “phantom fare” in the wake of the devastating 2011 tsunami and earthquake. In each instance, the story is similar. A taxi driver picks up a passenger in an area devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. He starts the meter and asks for the destination, to which the customer gives a strange response. Either then, or sometime later, the driver turns around to address the man or woman—but the passenger has vanished. This is because, it is claimed, it was a “ghost passenger” who was, in fact, killed in the disaster five years ago. (http://tinyurl.com/j797z2n)
There are several red flags that the story is implausible, beginning of course with the question of why a ghost would need to take a taxi anywhere. The origins ascribed to the ghosts by the taxi drivers are also curious: none of the reports have the ghosts explicitly stating that they were victims of the 2011 disaster; that detail seems to be assumed by the drivers, likely because of the area’s history.
Though the reports seem new, they are an interesting new twist on a very old story, in fact one of the best-known urban legends in the world. It’s known as The Vanishing Hitchhiker, and the basic story goes something like this: During a road trip, usually at night, a lone figure is seen standing by the side of the road. A driver stops and offers the person a ride; the drive proceeds either in total silence or with only a few words spoken. The driver later arrives at a destination and turns to the hitchhiker, only to find that the mysterious guest has vanished. Sometimes the story ends with the driver speaking to someone at the destination who identifies his phantom passenger as the spirit of a person who had died somewhere near where they were picked up.
Folklorist Jan Brunvand notes in his book The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings that “The specific ‘proof’ in the story of the hitchhiker’s actual presence in the car and her status as the ghost of a particular individual is always a key motif. Besides the book she leaves behind . . . the object may be a purse, a suitcase, a blanket, a sweater, a scarf, or some other item of clothing, or simply footprints or water spots in the car.” There are countless variations around the world, all of them told as true stories. While occasionally such spooky experiences are related as firsthand accounts, much more often they are told as second- or third-hand stories—what folklorists call “Friend-of-a-Friend” tales.