Phantom vehicle

A "haunted truck" at a Halloween event

In ghostlore, a phantom vehicle is a purportedly ghostly or haunted vehicle, common in urban legends and entertainment. The stories often describe cars that operate with no visible driver.

Types of phantom vehicles

Cars and trucks

  • In 1982, two people in Lanikai, Hawaii reported seeing a mysterious black car which disappeared and reappeared again a second later.[1]
  • A 1960s car that had bumper stickers; the witness passed the car but it mysteriously reappeared ahead of the witness's car at several stoplights. Also the witness noticed that the driver was a man in his teens and that he never turned his head and he never moved the steering wheel when the man drove around the "dead man's curve" the witness said.[2]
  • 2004, In Cape Town, South Africa, a Renault Mégane[3] sedan mysteriously rolled up an embankment and hit a fence, despite the fact that the handbrake was engaged and the engine was off. Some say the car was "jumping".[4]
  • Clinton Road of Passaic County, New Jersey is said to be host to numerous paranormal phenomena, including phantom pickup trucks and floating headlights that pursue drivers and then disappear.
  • In the mid-1980s, three people in a sedan reported seeing a gray van heading straight towards them. Then suddenly the van vanished.[5]
  • The Curse of "Little Bastard": the 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder in which James Dean died is said to be cursed after the accidents in which it has been later involved.[6]
  • In Australia, there is a story of the ghost truck of Kaniva where a driver was 'driven through' by a mysterious, 1940s' style big rig truck painted green.
  • In Germany, a car mysteriously started up by itself and rammed a wall.[7]
  • In 2000, an eyewitness claimed that an old truck started up by itself and blinked at him as he walked past an old house to where some are skeptic that someone was pranking them.[8]
  • Early 1980s - a British motorist crashed his car in order to avoid a truck that suddenly appeared coming straight towards him and then vanished.[9]
  • The curved road at the junction of St. Marks Road and Cambridge Gardens in Ladbroke Grove was reported to be haunted by a phantom bus with a route marker "7" which caused numerous accidents, one of which was fatal. The reports subsided when the area of road was straightened.[10]
  • Along the E8 Expressway also known as the Kuala Lumpur-Karak Expressway, in Malaysia, various supernatural phenomena have been reported, including headless ghosts, phantom hitchhikers, pontianaks (vampires), and a mysterious yellow Volkswagen beetle that follows you and disappears and reappears along the road, sometimes causing accidents.

Trains

Aeroplanes

  • In 1997, eyewitnesses from the eastern USA claimed they saw a single-engine aeroplane crash. But when the coast guard searched the waters off Connecticut, they could not find any wreckage or bodies. Also none of the airports reported any planes missing.[14]

Boats and ships

  • The Flying Dutchman, a ship manned by a captain condemned to eternally sail the seas, has long been the main legend of ghost ships.
  • The Mary Celeste is perhaps the most historically famous derelict.

See also

References

  1. "Ghost Car In Lanikai". Castle of Spirits. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  2. "Ghost Car in Broad Daylight Afternoon". Castle of Spirits.com. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  3. 'Ghost car' mystery revealed http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Ghost-car-mystery-revealed-20041213-2
  4. Carin Smith (21 November 2004). "'Haunted' car goes haywire". News24. Somerset West. Archived from the original on 8 December 2004. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  5. "The Ghost Car". Your True Tales. October 2003. p. 22.
  6. Curse of James Dean Archived 2005-12-10 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. "Wreck ignition for 'ghost car' that started on its own". Cape Times. Kempten, Germany. 7 November 2005. Archived from the original on 27 April 2006. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  8. The Old Rusty Ghost truck
  9. "Coventry and Warwickshire - Places - Spooky tales to chill your spine". BBC Online. 10 September 2003. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  10. Jeffrey, Martin. "The Ghost Bus of Ladbroke Grove". Haunted Britain. Mystery magazine. Archived from the original on 3 February 2009. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  11. af Klintberg, Bengt, Råttan i pizzan. Stockholm: Norstedts Förlag, 1992. ISBN 91-1-893831-0
  12. Yanko, Dave. "Mystery Solved?". Virtual Saskatchewan. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
  13. "Abe Lincoln's Ghost Train". HallowFreaks. Archived from the original on 5 October 2006. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  14. Phantom Plane Crashes
  15. Blades on IMDb
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