Marby Noffki

Ride in my fast machine

July 12, 2008 |  4 comments
Image Credit: Dave Appleby According to Snopes, stories of vanishing hitchhikers date back to Biblical times when the Apostle Phillip vanished on the Ethiopian kind enough to give him a ride in his chariot. This enduring legend has experienced only minor variation over the centuries. It has been updated from chariots and horses to carriages and cars. The hitchhiker is usually a young woman in a ball gown, but sometimes it is a young man, while other variations tell of a hag or an angelic figure. At the core, however, the driver picks up the hitchhiker who doesn’t have a whole lot to say, and eventually vanishes as they pass a graveyard, or as soon as the driver pulls up to the hitchhiker’s destination. More often than not, the hitchhiker leaves a coat, scarf, or hat behind, and it is only when the driver attempts to return it that he or she discovers, usually from tearful parents, that the hitchhiker has been dead for ten years.

Probably the most famous American ghostly hitchhiker is Resurrection Mary in Chicago, Illinois. She is a pretty blonde girl wearing a white ball gown who is said to appear on Archer Avenue, where she hitches a ride from an unsuspecting man, only to vanish when they pass Resurrection Cemetery. Supposedly, poor Mary was killed in a car wreck in the 1930’s on her way home from the O Henry ball room, and is still trying to find her way home.

Some ghostly hitchhikers are not polite enough to flag the driver down. They just appear in the car for a few miles, presumably freaking whoever is behind the wheel out, only to vanish once again.

These stories are not only old, but it seems they are just about everywhere. I have lived in Florida, Illinois, California, and Texas, and in each of these states, the “local legend” is alive and well. Of course, the person driving is someone whose name is lost in the retelling of the tale, or is a friend of a friend’s brother’s ex-girlfriend’s cousin. We never get a first hand account that can be verified. Even America’s beloved Resurrection Mary has no living relatives that I have ever read about that can verify these stories. We probably should not expect verification from one of the oldest urban legends around, either. Yet surely, as enduring as this tale is, there has to be someone, somewhere, who has picked up a phantom hitchhiker at some point, whether they were carjacked by the ghost or actually pulled over to let them in. While people do not pick up hitchhikers as they used to do when the world was a safer place, I would be thrilled to hear of even a ghost appearing in the passenger seat from a driver that lived to tell the tale.

They say that legends are based on at least one shred of fact. While I can see how that shred of fact might well exist centuries ago given the appeal of such a tale, it seems hard to imagine that the momentum would be so great. There are too many tales of ghostly coaches, trains, cars, and young, sweet hitchhikers for it to be just an urban legend handed down from Biblical times.

If you have personally experienced anything involving a phantom hitchhiker, or have a verifiable tale involving one, please feel free to share it with the rest of us, or the next time I am in the States, I will have to go to Chicago just to cruise up and down Archer Avenue, and really, there is just so much more I can do with my holiday.

Marby Noffki Comments (4)

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