The vanishing hitchhiker (or variations such as the ghostly hitchhiker, disappearing hitchhiker, phantom hitchhiker) 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 ...
in which people travelling by vehicle, meet with or are accompanied by a
hitchhiker
Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free.
Nomads have ...
who subsequently vanishes without explanation, often from a moving vehicle.
Public knowledge of the story expanded greatly with the 1981 publication of
Jan Harold Brunvand
Jan Harold Brunvand (born March 23, 1933) is a retired American folklorist, researcher, writer, public speaker, and professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah.
Brunvand is best known for popularizing the concept of the urban legend, ...
's non-fiction book ''The Vanishing Hitchhiker''.
In his book, Brunvand suggests that the story of ''The Vanishing Hitchhiker'' can be traced as far back as the 1870s."
Similar stories have been reported for centuries across the world in places like England, Ethiopia, Korea, Tsarist Russia and in America among Chinese Americans, Mormons and Ozark mountaineers
The, probably,
first vanishing hitchhiker legend can be found in the 400-year-old manuscript ''Om the tekn och widunder som föregingo thet liturgiske owäsendet'', approx "''About the signs and wonders that preceded the liturgical event''". The author was Joen Petri Klint, a
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
in
diocese of Linköping
The Diocese of Linköping ( sv, Linköpings stift) is a diocese within the Church of Sweden administering the Östergötland County, the north eastern part of Jönköping County and the northern part of Kalmar County. It comprises nine deanerie ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, and diligent collector of
omen
An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages fr ...
s.
Variations
A common variation of the above involves the vanishing
hitchhiker
Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free.
Nomads have ...
departing as would a normal passenger, having left some item in the
vehicle
A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), wa ...
, or having borrowed a garment for protection against the cold.
The vanishing hitchhiker may also leave some form of information that encourages the
motorist
Driving is the controlled operation and movement of a vehicle, including cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, and bicycles. Permission to drive on public highways is granted based on a set of conditions being met and drivers are required to follo ...
to make subsequent contact.
In such accounts of the legend, the garment borrowed is often found draped over a
gravestone
A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a stele or marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. It is traditional for burials in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions, among others. In most cases, it has the deceased's name, da ...
in a local
cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
.
In this and other versions of the
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 ...
, the unsuspecting motorist makes contact with the family of a
deceased
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
person using the information the hitchhiker left behind and finds that the family's description of the deceased matches the passenger the motorist picked up and also finds that they were killed in some unexpected way (usually a
car accident) and that the driver's encounter with the vanishing hitchhiker occurred on the anniversary of their death.
Other variations reverse this scenario, in that the hitchhiker meets a driver; the hitchhiker later learns that the driver is actually an
apparition of a person who died earlier.
Not all vanishing hitchhiker legends involve
ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
s. One popular variant in
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
involves the goddess
Pele, travelling the roads incognito and rewarding kind travellers; other variants include hitchhikers who utter
prophecies
In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or prete ...
(typically of pending
catastrophe
Catastrophe or catastrophic comes from the Greek κατά (''kata'') = down; στροφή (''strophē'') = turning ( el, καταστροφή). It may refer to:
A general or specific event
* Disaster, a devastating event
* The Asia Minor Catastro ...
s or other evil events) before vanishing.
There is a similar story which is about two travellers sitting next to each other on a
train
In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...
(normally a man and a woman). One of them is reading a book and the other person asks what the book is about, and the first person says that it's about
ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
s. They then have a conversation about ghosts, and the second person asks the first if they believe in ghosts or have ever seen one, to which the first person says that they have never seen or believed in ghosts at all. The second person replies that this is doubtful, and vanishes. This was the version used in the ''
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
''Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark'' is a series of three collections of short horror stories for children, written by Alvin Schwartz and originally illustrated by Stephen Gammell. In 2011, HarperCollins published editions featuring new art b ...
'' book series.
Classifications
Beardsley and Hankey
The first proper study of the story of the vanishing hitchhiker was undertaken in 1942–43 by
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
folklorists
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
Richard Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey, who collected as many accounts as they could and attempted to analyze them.
The Beardsley-Hankey survey elicited 79 written accounts of encounters with vanishing hitchhikers, drawn from across the United States.
They found: "Four distinctly different versions, distinguishable because of obvious differences in development and essence." These are described as:
* A. Stories where the hitchhiker gives an address through which the motorist learns he has just given a lift to a ghost.
** 49 of the Beardsley-Hankey samples fell into this category, with responses from 16 states of the United States.
* B. Stories where the hitchhiker is an old woman who prophesies disaster or the end of World War II; subsequent inquiries likewise reveal her to be deceased.
** Nine of the samples fit this description, and eight of these came from the vicinity of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. Beardsley and Hankey felt that this indicated a local origin, which they dated to approximately 1933: two of the version B hitchhikers in this sample foretold disaster at the
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...
Exposition and another foresaw calamity "at the
World's Fair
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
". The strict topicality of these unsuccessful forecasts did not appear to thwart the appearance of further Version 'B' hitch-hikers, one of whom warned that
Northerly Island
Northerly Island is a man-made peninsula along Chicago's Lake Michigan lakefront. The site of the Adler Planetarium, Northerly Island connects to the mainland through a narrow isthmus along Solidarity Drive. This street is dominated by Neoclassi ...
, in
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
, would soon be submerged (this has not yet occurred).
* C. Stories where a girl is met at some place of entertainment, ''e.g.'', dance, instead of on the road; she leaves some token (often the overcoat she borrowed from the motorist) on her grave by way of corroborating the experience and her identity.
** The uniformity amongst separate accounts of this variant led Beardsley and Hankey to strongly doubt its folkloric authenticity.
* D. Stories where the hitchhiker is later identified as a local divinity.
Beardsley and Hankey were particularly interested to note one instance (location:
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany, New York, Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with t ...
, 1941) in which the vanishing hitchhiker was subsequently identified as the late
Mother Cabrini, founder of the local Sacred Heart Orphanage, who was
beatified
Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
for her work. The authors felt that this was a case of Version 'B' glimpsed in transition to Version 'D'.
Beardsley and Hankey concluded that Version 'A' was closest to the original form of the story, containing the essential elements of the legend. Version 'B' and 'D', they believed, were localized variations, while 'C' was supposed to have started life as a separate ghost story which at some stage became conflated with the original vanishing hitchhiker story (Version 'A').
One of their conclusions certainly seems reflected in the continuation of vanishing hitchhiker stories: The hitchhiker is, in the majority of cases, female and the lift-giver male. Beardsley and Hankey's sample contained 47 young female apparitions, 14 old lady apparitions, and 14 more of an indeterminate sort.
Baughman
Ernest W. Baughman's ''Type- and Motif-Index of the Folk Tales of England and North America'' (1966) delineates the basic vanishing hitchhiker as follows:
Ghost of young woman asks for ride in automobile, disappears from closed car without the driver's knowledge, after giving him an address to which she wishes to be taken. The driver asks person at the address about the rider, finds she has been dead for some time. (Often the driver finds that the ghost has made similar attempts to return, usually on the anniversary of death in automobile accident. Often, too, the ghost leaves some item such as a scarf or traveling bag in the car.)
Baughman's classification system grades this basic story as motif E332.3.3.1.
Subcategories include:
* E332.3.3.1(a) for vanishing hitchhikers who reappear on anniversaries;
* E332.3.3.1(b) for vanishing hitchhikers who leave items in vehicles, unless the item is in a pool of water in which case it is E332.3.3.1(c);
* E332.3.3.1(d) is for accounts of sinister old ladies who prophesy disasters;
* E332.3.3.1(e) contains accounts of phantoms who are apparently sufficiently solid to engage in activities such as eating or drinking during their journey;
* E332.3.3.1(f) is for phantom parents who want to be taken to the sickbed of their dying son;
* E332.3.3.1(g) is for hitchhikers simply requesting a lift home;
* E332.3.3.1(h-j) are a category reserved exclusively for vanishing nuns (a surprisingly common variant), some of whom foretell the future.
Here, the phenomenon blends into religious encounters, with the next and last vanishing hitchhiker classification – E332.3.3.2 – being for encounters with divinities who take to the road as hitchhikers. The legend of
Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is veneration, venerated by several Christianity, Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman Empire, Roman emperor Deciu ...
is considered one of these, and the story of
Philip the Evangelist
Philip the Evangelist ( el, Φίλιππος, ''Philippos'') appears several times in the Acts of the Apostles. He was one of the Seven chosen to care for the poor of the Christian community in Jerusalem (). He preached and reportedly perform ...
being transported by God after encountering the Ethiopian on the road (
Acts
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
8:26–39) is sometimes similarly interpreted.
The first vanishing hitchhiker legend
The author was Joen Petri Klint, a
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
in
diocese of Linköping
The Diocese of Linköping ( sv, Linköpings stift) is a diocese within the Church of Sweden administering the Östergötland County, the north eastern part of Jönköping County and the northern part of Kalmar County. It comprises nine deanerie ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, and diligent collector of
omen
An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages fr ...
s.
In February 1602 a
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
and two
farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...
s were on their way home from the
Candelmass market in
Västergötland
Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden.
Väs ...
. A
maid
A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids ...
asked to go along. At an
inn
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...
they got off to get a bite to eat, and the maid wanted something to drink, a jug of beer (a common beverage). The first time the
innkeeper
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accomm ...
fetched beer, the jug was filled with
malt
Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air.
Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...
, second time
acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally
two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...
s, and finally
blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...
. They were then horrified. The maid explained that this year will yield much
grain
A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...
; plenty of
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
on the trees; but
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
and
pestilence. Then she disappeared into thin
air
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...
.
The incident contains all the hallmarks of a "vanishing hitchhiker". It fits well with Beardsley's and Hankey's B and C categories (when the hitchhiker disappeared after making a
prediction
A prediction (Latin ''præ-'', "before," and ''dicere'', "to say"), or forecast, is a statement about a future event or data. They are often, but not always, based upon experience or knowledge. There is no universal agreement about the exact ...
). The beer's transformations match Baughman's category E332.3.3.1(b), when the maid left behind seed, acorns and blood, and category E332.3.3.1(d) when she predicted the future (however, Klint does not mention whether the prophecy was correct), as well as category E332.3.3.1(e) because she wanted something to drink, and E332.3.3.1(g) because she was on her way home.
Skeptical reception
Paranormal researcher Michael Goss in his book ''The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-Hikers'' discovered that many reports of vanishing hitchhikers turn out be based on
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
and
hearsay
Hearsay evidence, in a legal forum, is testimony from an under-oath witness who is reciting an out-of-court statement, the content of which is being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. In most courts, hearsay evidence is inadmis ...
stories. Goss also examined some cases and attributed them to
hallucination
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinatio ...
of the experiencer.
According to Goss most of the stories are "fabricated, folklore creations retold in new settings."
[Nickell, Joe. (2007). ''Adventures in Paranormal Investigation''. University of Kentucky Press. pp. 74–82. ]
Skeptic
Joe Nickell
Joe Nickell (born December 1, 1944) is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal.
Nickell is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and writes regularly for their journal, ''Skeptical Inquirer''. He is als ...
, who investigated two alleged cases, concluded that there is no reliable evidence for vanishing hitchhikers. Historical examples have their origin in folklore tales and
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 ...
s. Modern cases often involve conflicting accounts that may well be the result of
exaggeration
Exaggeration is the representation of something as more extreme or dramatic than it really is. Exaggeration may occur intentionally or unintentionally.
Exaggeration can be a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke str ...
,
illusion
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people.
Illusions may o ...
or
hoax
A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
ing.
See also
*
A229 road
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...
, scene of the "Phantom Hitch-Hiker" stories where the road passes the
Lower Bell
The Lower Bell is a pub on the A229 Blue Bell Hill, between Chatham and Maidstone in Kent. It is located at the edge of the North Downs where the A229 meets the Pilgrims' Way.
A pub has existed in the general area since around 1790, when the A22 ...
pub at
Blue Bell Hill
Blue Bell Hill is a chalk hill between Maidstone and Rochester in the English county of Kent. It overlooks the River Medway and is part of the North Downs. Settlements on the hill include the Walderslade suburb of Chatham and the villages of B ...
*
Belchen Tunnel
The Belchen Tunnel is a motorway tunnel in Switzerland, and forms part of the A2 motorway from Basel to Chiasso. It links Eptingen in the canton of Basel-Country with Hägendorf in the Canton of Solothurn. The tunnel was opened in 1966, and is ...
(the "white woman" of the Belchen Tunnel, Switzerland)
*
Haunted highway
*
Highway hypnosis
Highway hypnosis, also known as white line fever, is an altered mental state in which a person can drive a car, truck, or other automobile great distances, responding to external events in the expected, safe, and correct manner with no recolle ...
*
Laurie (Strange Things Happen)
Laurie may refer to:
Places
* Laurie, Cantal, France, a commune
* Laurie, Missouri, United States, a village
* Laurie Island, Antarctica
Music
* Laurie Records, a record label
* ''Laurie'' (EP), a 1992 album by Daniel Johnston
* "Laurie (Stran ...
*
List of ghosts
The following is a list of ghosts:
African folklore
* Adze, Ewe vampiric being
* Amadlozi, Nguni spiritual figures
* Asanbosam, Akan vampire
* Egbere, Yoruban malevolent spirit
* Kishi, Angolan two-faced demon
* Madam Koi Koi, Nigerian gho ...
*
Niles Canyon ghost
*
Madam Koi Koi
Madam Koi Koi (Lady Koi Koi, Miss Koi Koi, also known in Ghana as Madam High Heel or Madam Moke and in Tanzania as Miss Konkoko) is a ghost in Nigerian and African urban legend who haunts dormitories, hallways and toilets in boarding schools at ni ...
* ''
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure'' (“Large Marge”)
*
Raymond Robinson (Green Man)
Raymond Theodore Robinson (October 29, 1910 – June 11, 1985) was a disfigured American man whose years of nighttime walks made him into a figure of urban legend in western Pennsylvania. Robinson was so severely injured in a childhood electrical ...
*
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 ...
*
Shipley Hollow Road
Shipley Hollow Road is an allegedly haunted road in Sale Creek, Tennessee. These stories go back 150 years and are mentioned in several local books, including ''Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley.'' The ghost or creature is referred to as Pi ...
*
The Hitch-Hiker (The Twilight Zone)
"The Hitch-Hiker" is episode sixteen of the American television anthology series ''The Twilight Zone'' which originally aired on January 22, 1960 on CBS. It is based on Lucille Fletcher's radio play ''The Hitch-Hiker''. It is frequently listed am ...
, an episode in which a woman sees a hitchhiker during her cross-country road trip
*
''The Hitcher'' (1986 film)
*
The Suffolk Miracle
The Suffolk Miracle is Child ballad 272 and is listed as #246 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Versions of the ballad have been collected from traditional singers in England, Ireland and North America. The song is also known as "The Holland Handke ...
, a legend along similar lines
*
Lady of White Rock Lake
*
Phantom 309
"Phantom 309" is a song written by Tommy Faile and released as a single by Red Sovine in 1967. It was a minor hit, peaking at number nine on the Billboard Magazine Country chart. The lyrics are spoken, rather than sung.
Content
The song tells ...
*
The Vanishing Hitchhiker (film)
''The Vanishing Hitchhiker'' is a 2020 Italian horror- supernatural-drama short film, written, directed and edited by Rosario Brucato. Various themes intertwine in the film such as maternal love, kindness, the supernatural, premature death and th ...
References
Further reading
* Bielski, Ursula. (1997). ''Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City''. Chicago: Lake Claremont Press.
* Brunvand, Jan Harold. (1981). ''The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings''. New York: Norton.
* Cohen, Daniel. (1966). ''The Phantom Hitchhiker: and Other Ghost Mysteries''. Scholastic.
* Goss, Michael. (1984). ''The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-Hikers''. Wellingborough, UK: Aquarian Press.
External links
prairieghosts.com on ''Highway 365''snopes.com on ''The Vanishing Hitchhiker''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanishing Hitchhiker
Ghosts
Supernatural legends
Hitchhiking
Urban legends