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The small town of Coalisland in County Tyrone hit the headlines this week, as reports of a ghostly hitchhiker resulted in a small traffic jam, drivers eager to see the pallid female phantasm as she drifted around the Brackaville area. As expected, unfortunately, no real witnesses came forward, and a local councillor attributed the reflection of the moon on a nearby river as the cause of the hysteria. Can all phantom hitchhikers be so easily dismissed?

Probably the best known vanishing hitchhiker story in the UK comes from Blue Bell Hill, near Rochester, Kent. One shaken witness went to the police after believing he had run over a young girl - on investigation of the scene of the 'accident', no body, blood or evidence of any kind of impact could be found. On separate occasions, two families reported a terrifying old hag-like figure standing in front of their cars, causing them to stop sharply. The lady vanishes. As if phantom women were not enough to keep the area on the paranormal map, Blue Bell Hill has cryptozoological interest; a gorilla-like creature was spotted here, as was an ostrich which morphed into a large black cat before making its escape from inquisitive eyes.

The A38, running from Cornwall to Nottinghamshire, is reputedly busy with ghostly hitchhikers. Though not seen for a good many years, a phantom man in a long grey coat lurks around the road as it passes Taunton, excitedly throwing himself in front of cars not willing to offer him a lift. Close to Wellington, another male ghost (or possibly the same one, hurriedly moving around) tries to flag down motorists with a torch. Moving up to Bristol, a small part of the A38 is said to be covered in skid marks where a woman in a white coat causes unwary drivers to perform emergency stops.

Not all hitchhikers wait by the roadside to be invited into the car. Take this example from Newstead Abbey:

Not a pleasant experience, and needless to say, this witness never went back to the site.

Stories of vanishing hitchhikers are nothing new, of course. Ghosts that would leap upon the backs of unsuspecting horsemen, or materialise on the passenger seat of carts being pulled by ponies, the latter a habit belonging to the white lady of Tangham Forest, date back hundreds of years. Was the Tangham spook a moonbeam dancing through the forest canopy? Are modern sightings of vanishing hitchhikers nothing more than urban legend, a story told by a friend of a friend? Could the horrific figures be created by the mind as it tries to deal with the monotony of long distance travel? To categorically answer 'of course not' is paramount to self delusion, but to dismiss all these roadside encounters as fiction and illusion is equally as misinformed.

Darren Mann
www.paranormaldatabase.com