The Niles Canyon ghost is an
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
within the
vanishing hitchhiker
The vanishing hitchhiker (or variations such as the ghostly hitchhiker, disappearing hitchhiker, phantom hitchhiker) is an urban legend in which people travelling by vehicle, meet with or are accompanied by a hitchhiker who subsequently vanishes ...
archetype, about the ghost of a girl who had died in a car accident. The accident is said to have taken place on February 28, with the year varying, and the ghost is said to walk the road on that day every year, looking to hitch a ride to San Francisco.
One variation of the story has the hiker's backstory being that she died in a car crash on
Niles Canyon road (off the
680 freeway in
Sunol, California
Sunol ( es, Suñol) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Alameda County, California. Located in the Sunol Valley of the East Bay, the population was 913 at the 2010 census. It is best known as the location of the Sunol Water ...
) on the way back from a dance.
Some say that she can be seen at midnight waiting at the corner she died at. People traveling along the road (mostly those traveling alone) have said to have stopped and offered the girl a ride. She accepts the ride, giving the driver an address across the bridge (either Dumbarton or Bay Bridge depending on the storyteller). Once the driver gets to the beginning of the bridge, the girl will disappear. In stories told of the ghost, a driver who visits the girl's address is told by the girl's mother that she died many years previously.
Another version of the story has the ghost described as a
White Lady
A White Lady (or woman in white) is a type of female ghost. She has long straight hair, typically dressed in a white dress or similar garment, reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with local legends of tragedy. White Lady legends ar ...
killed in a carriage accident a hundred years previously.
See also
*
Bloody Mary (folklore)
*
Madam Koi Koi
*
Resurrection Mary
Resurrection Mary is a well-known Chicago area ghost story, or urban legend, of the " vanishing hitchhiker" type, a type of folklore that is known in many cultures. According to the story, the ghost resides in Resurrection Cemetery in Justice, Il ...
References
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American ghosts
Female legendary creatures