Other variants include hitchhikers who utter prophecies (typically of pending catastrophe or other evils) before vanishing. One popular variant in Hawaii involves the goddess Pele, traveling the roads incognito and rewarding kind travelers. Not all vanishing hitchhiker reports involved allegedly recurring ghosts. In this and in the instance of “imparted information”, the unsuspecting motorist subsequently makes contact with the family of a deceased person and finds that their passenger fits the description of a family member 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. In such tellings, the garment borrowed is often subsequently found draped over a gravestone in a local cemetery.
The vanishing hitchhiker can also leave some form of information that allegedly encourages the motorist to make subsequent contact. In many cases, the hitchhiker vanishes when (normally) a vehicle reaches the hitchhiker’s destination.Ī common variation of the above involves the vanishing hitchhiker departing as would a normal passenger, having left some item in the car, or having borrowed a garment for protection against alleged cold (whether or not the weather conditions reflect this claim). The journey proceeds, sometimes in total silence, and at some subsequent point, the passenger appears to vanish while the vehicle is in motion. The motorist stops and offers the figure a lift.
The figure adopts the stance of a hitchhiker. The archetypal modern vanishing hitchhiker is a figure seen in the headlights of a car traveling by night with a single occupant. Public knowledge of the term expanded greatly with the 1981 publication of Jan Harold Brunvand’s book The Vanishing Hitchhiker, which helped launch public awareness of urban legends. The popularity and endurance of the legend has helped it spread into popular culture.
Vanishing hitchhikers have been reported for centuries and the story is found across the world, with many variants. The Vanishing Hitchhiker (or variations such as the ghostly hitchhiker, the disappearing hitchhiker, the phantom hitchhiker or simply the hitchhiker) story is an urban legend in which people traveling by vehicle meet with or are accompanied by a hitchhiker who subsequently vanishes without explanation, often from a moving vehicle.
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