Perhaps the most famous of all urban legends, vanishing hitchhiker tales have a long history. Such tales have been identified all over the world and have been reported for centuries. In most versions, a driver picks up a young hitchhiker, usually female, who mysteriously vanishes during the journey. Often, when the hitchhiker’s destination is reached, it is revealed that the hitchhiker has been long dead, and the passenger was her ghost. Tales that surfaced during the 1800s would often tell of women who appeared on the back of a rider’s horse, only to disappear before reaching the destination. Eventually, the automobile replaced horses, wagons, and carriages as the primary mode of transportation in the tale, but otherwise, the elements of the tale have largely remained the same.
In many instances, these stories contain enough details to make them seem believable. The driver is male and the passenger is female in almost every version. Variations certainly exist, however, including some that have two live passengers in the vehicle at the time of the encounter. Ages of the people in question are not typically stated, but the ghostly passenger is almost always thought to be young. The tellers of such tales may reference specific local landmarks, such as specific roads, bridges, or graveyards, which lend an element of familiarity. Also, the stories sometimes include the presence of an item that serves as the incentive for the driver to continue on to the destination, even though the passenger has disappeared. Then it is revealed that the passenger was in fact a ghost, usually having died from an automobile accident. In the versions from the nineteenth century, no cause of death is typically stated, and the only identifying information provided is that the hitchhikers were the ghosts of farmers’ daughters.
Stories differ in when the hitchhiker vanishes during the journey. Sometimes the hitchhiker stays until reaching the destination, usually the hitchhiker’s home, before vanishing. This plot device allows the drivers in the stories to confront the surviving family members and learn that their passengers were ghosts. Other times, the hitchhikers will disappear when they pass the graveyard in which they are buried. Occasionally, the disappearance will occur on a particular stretch of road, which it is later learned is the place where they died. Location is not the only important factor in the encounter. Most of the American versions of the legend indicate that these experiences specifically occur on the anniversary of the hitchhikers’ deaths.
Though some versions of the story indicate that the hitchhiker is eerily silent throughout the trip, others indicate that adequate conversation takes place for the driver to get enough details about his mysterious occupant to care enough to follow up on her disappearance later. At the very least, the driver learns where she lives, setting up an eventual visit with her surviving parents. Occasionally, the passenger leaves behind a personal belonging, such as a jacket, scarf, book, or shawl. Other times, the hitchhiker borrows an item of clothing from the driver, such as a jacket or coat to keep her warm, and either leaves with it, assuming she completes the journey, or it vanishes with her at the time of her disappearance. In either case, because of the item, the driver eventually makes contact with the family. In some of the spookier variations of the tale, a visit to the local graveyard reveals the hitchhiker’s tombstone, with the driver’s garment placed over it.
Clothing plays a part in other versions of the narrative. Often, the hitchhiker is said to be wearing a specific type of dress, such as a prom or party dress. Sometimes the driver enters the house and sees a photograph of his passenger dressed in the exact same gown, only to learn that she has been dead a number of years. It has even been related that the parents of the hitchhiker are aware of their daughter’s attempts to get home, and that this encounter is not the first time such a paranormal experience has happened.
In one particular variation, the young hitchhiker asks the driver to take her home but is persuaded by the driver and the driver’s friend to accompany them to a high school dance. In these versions, the hitchhiker is almost always appropriately dressed for the occasion. There, they spend the entire evening together, dancing before resuming the journey to take her home. In some cases, the hitchhiker’s mother relates that she had died trying to return home from the dance a number of years earlier. In other cases, it is indicated that the hitchhiker was killed on her way to the dance and that this young driver and his sidekick did a good thing by actually helping her finally make it to the dance.
With so many variations of the story presented over the centuries, it is not surprising that one particular account does not contain a ghost at all. In Hawaii, tales of the fire goddess Pele have been circulating since at least the 1930s. Sometimes she is simply standing on the side of the road, occasionally accompanied by a small white dog. Those who ignore her or fail to pick her up are said to meet with bad luck, while those who pick her up are blessed. Though she can appear in any form as a hitchhiker, she is most often seen as an old lady. In some versions of the Pele tales, it is acceptable to pass her by if she is accompanied by her dog. She may reveal herself and has been said to do so by making fire appear in her hands to light a cigarette and then making herself disappear. Other times, she may warn of an upcoming calamity, such as a tsunami or a volcanic eruption. The Pele legends, though different from the more traditional ghostly variants, still contain the key elements: a Good Samaritan driver, a mysterious occupant, and a sudden and unexplained disappearance.
The god-like presence of the passenger extends outside Hawaii and into other variations of the tale. Sometimes, the mysterious traveler serves as a prophet, sharing some bit of vague prophecy before vanishing. The information shared by the mysterious traveler varies but is usually something significant, such as the upcoming conclusion of a war, the impending end of the world, or the return of Jesus Christ. It is not surprising that the legends would extend into religion, especially considering that a similar story shows up in the Acts of the Apostles (8:26–39), which relates how the Apostle Philip shares the word of the Lord with a chariot driver before baptizing him and disappearing. Though this tale is not a true hitchhiker legend in the purest sense, it does contain the central elements of the legend: an otherworldly passenger and a sudden disappearance from a vehicle.
The Abandoned Bride of Beaver Creek Bridge
The vanishing hitchhiker is of course a ghost story of sorts, although it bears the trappings of the classic urban legend. Many American locales have their own hauntings of this type, and although they may seem to be variations on a theme, some have notable plot twists. The story of Esther Hale offers a figure worthy of Miss Havisham of Great Expectations fame. Jilted on her wedding day in Sprucevale, Ohio, Esther is said to have worn her wedding dress until her death and indeed into her grave. Now she haunts the Beaver Creek Bridge, a rotting corpse in a tattered bridal gown, appearing to passersby on the anniversary of her wedding day; if she should flag down an unwary driver, however, she would be revived while he would die. Esther is also said to haunt the Hambleton Mill along the now defunct canal.
C. Fee
Tales of vanishing hitchhikers have made their way into dozens of books and continue to multiply. Prominent folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand published the most definitive work on the subject with his 1981 book, The Vanishing Hitchhiker. Though he is not the first folklorist to study this tale, this book helped propel the academic pursuit of urban legends into the mainstream. Despite the popularization of the tale, and the awareness this and other books have created, vanishing hitchhiker tales continue to proliferate orally and on the Internet.
Daniel Patrick Compora
See also Pele Legends; Scary Stories; Urban Legends/Urban Belief Tales; Vanishing Lady
Further Reading
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1999. Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends. New York: W. W. Norton.
Goss, Michael. 1985. The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-Hikers. New York: Sterling.
Illes, Judika. 2009. The Encyclopedia of Spirits. New York: HarperOne.