We’re back with another edition of Urban Legend: Fact or Fiction. In this chapter, we take a deep dive into the oldest legend we’ve ever covered, The Vanishing Hitchhiker. So hang on tight to your lettermen jacket, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
The Story of The Vanishing Hitchhiker
So this totally, 100% happened to a friend of a friend of mine. My buddy Josh was driving down a back road with his friend Kyle late at night. They were heading to a school dance when the pair spotted a young woman standing by the side of the road hitchhiking, they stop to help her. She introduces herself as Mary and asked for a ride home, but the guys invited her to the dance instead. Figuring at least now one of them wouldn’t be going solo.
She hopped into the backseat and seemed cold since the fabric on her dress was a bit thin. Josh offered up his lettermen jacket, which she thankfully accepted. The group danced the night away and in the wee hours of the morning, Mary asked for a ride home. Kyle and Josh drove her back down the road just a few miles from where they picked her up. And dropped her off in front of a small house surrounded by thick woods.
It wasn’t until the friends were almost home that Josh realized she never returned his jacket. Kyle said he was exhausted and they should just go back there tomorrow and get it. The next morning rolls around and the friends set out for Mary’s house. When they arrived at the small home an old woman greets them with a slightly puzzled expression.
They explained the situation and asked her about her daughter and getting the jacket back. The woman got a tearful look in her eyes. “Mary died 12 years ago,” she mournfully responded. She was killed in a car accident on the same road they picked her up on. Every year, some good Samaritan comes looking for her, after giving her a ride home.
Then Mary’s mother said she was buried in a small cemetery on the other side of the road. In shock, but not wanting to call the woman a liar they thanked her for her time. But you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat. Josh and Kyle decided to go see for themselves. Since the old cemetery wasn’t very big, they quickly found Mary’s grave. Not only did her date of death match he mother’s story.
The grave also had Josh’s letterman jacket resting on it.
Variants & History
Those of you who have been following this series [thank you] know we normally cover the variants of these urban legends and their histories separately. But in the instance of The Vanishing Hitchhiker, it’s so old and pervasive that doing that is impossible. So we’ll be running both down at the same time.
There’s some debate over the origins of this urban legend. Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand was able to track it back to 1876. Others contend that the tale was first recorded in 1602. Keep in mind; that due to the nature of urban legends, most of these stories are passed down orally. Meaning they often exist long before any record of them is made.
What is believed to be the origin point for The Vanishing Hitchhiker is a story of a priest and two farmers who were on their way home from the Candelmass market in Västergötland, Sweden. They happen upon a maid who asks to tag along with them. The group stops off at an inn for a bite to eat, and the maid wants a jug of beer. The first time the innkeeper fetches her jug of beer, it is filled with malt. The second time it is acorns. By the third time, the jug is filled with blood.
The maid explains to the horrified group that this year will yield much grain and fruit. On the other hand, it will also bring war and pestilence. Then she disappeared into thin air.
This telling was found in an over 400-year-old manuscript “Om the tekn och widunder som föregingo thet liturgiske owäsendet” (“About the signs and wonders that preceded the liturgical event”). It is authored by Joen Petri Klint, a priest in the Diocese of Linköping, Sweden. He was also a collector of omens, which is possibly the coolest job ever
American folklorists Richard Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey did a comprehensive study of the tale from 1942 through 1943. During this research, they amassed 79 written accounts of encounters with vanishing hitchhikers, across the US. Beardsley and Hankey then divide these into four distinctive categories.
The first variant is one of the most pervasive across the US and England. In this version, the hitchhiker gives an address by which the driver learns they have just given a ride to a ghost. Often the ghost in this version has died in some tragic way. Normally a car accident along the same road they are picked up on. 49 of the responses to Beardsley and Hankey’s survey, spread across 16 different states in the US, fit into this category.
The second is the hitchhiker prophesizing some kind of major, normally disastrous, event before disappearing. When the person who picked them up tried to find an explanation for the bizarre encounter, they find out the person is dead. Out of all the samples nine fell into this category and eight come from around Chicago, originating sometime around 1933. This leads researchers to believe this one is probably of local origin. This notion is also backed up by Brunvand’s research since he tracked a southwest Chicago variant known as Resurrection Mary. While Mary is a common name in this tale, resurrection is a bit more biblical in nature than other regional versions.
This version of The Vanishing Hitchhiker has included disasters at the Century of Progress Exposition and the World’s Fair. As well as Northerly Island, located in Lake Michigan, being submerged. Sometimes they are more cryptic and say “The end is near” or that “Gabriel will blow his horn.” Which biblically signals the end of times. Every once and again they give a positive prophecy like the end of WWII. So far, the war ending is the only one that has actually come to fruition.
The third category has the hitchhiker and motorist meeting at a social event like a dance instead of on the road. This version is also where we see her leave a token behind, like a borrowed jacket, to corroborate the story.
And the fourth category tells the same basic story but the hitchhiker is now some kind of local divinity. For example, one tale from 1941 out of Kingston, New York has identifies our ghostly apparition as Mother Cabrini. Who founded the local Sacred Heart Orphanage and was beatified for her work. Another originates out of Hawaii and has goddess Pele traveling incognito. But instead of doing anything creepy, she rewards kind travelers.
While these four tellings are the most pervasive they are far from the only examples of this legend. Like a version from Romania that twists this one around a bit. It has a man’s car break down and two women offer him a lift. He ends up hanging out with them for a bit at their apartment. The next day he realizes he forgot his watch. When he goes to retrieve it the doorman informs him that those women died in a car crash three weeks prior.
One telling from the book “Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark” even utilizes public transportation. Two people are sitting next to each other on a train. One person is reading, so the other inquires about their book. They tell the other passenger it’s about ghosts. They start to talk about the possible reality of ghosts but the person reading the book says they don’t believe in them. So the other passenger says “That is doubtful,” before vanishing.
Variations of The Vanishing Hitchhiker often have a local flare to them. Like “Hitchhike Anne” from Northside St. Louis, “Jesus on The Thruway” from upstate New York, “The Lady of White Rock Lake” near Dallas, and 1982’s “Hitchhike Arch Angel Gabriel” from Bavaria.
Outside of just being creepy, many scholars consider this tale to have some serious undertones of purity culture. Looking at the structure of the first category from Beardsley and Hankey’s study. The woman being picked up is often in flimsy clothing, which causes her to borrow a jacket. Clothing that later serves as proof of the exchange.
Some interpret this light, often white, garb with a burial shroud, eluding to her death. But others view it as a symbol of her purity i.e. being virginal. The car is perceived as a phallic symbol and the man driving it is literally picking her up. Looking at this story through a puritanical lens, any girl who would allow herself to be “picked up” so easily must have loose moral fiber. Since her literally “getting a ride” is a heavy-handed metaphor for something very different.
This interpretation is backed up by the fact she sometimes leaves a bit of blood on the seat when she vanishes. While it’s a reference to her death, it is also symbolic of the loss of her virginity. And if she engaged in pre-marital sex, she would not be able to return home due to the stigma of this choice. Something we again see quite literally in the story since the driver often drops her off a few blocks from home. Or near the cemetery where she actually lives.
Pop Culture
Some notable examples of The Vanishing Hitchhiker ledged are:
- 1952 – “Return to Glennascaul” This short film starring Orson Welles, centers around the Romanian version of this story.
- 1959 – “The Twilight Zone” episode “The Hitch-Hiker” has a woman being followed in her car by a ghost. She believes he wants to kill her, but then discovers he has been trying to tell her she is already dead.
- 1962 – “Bees Saal Baad” is a Bollywood film that has a scene where a man gives a ride to a young woman on a dark and stormy night. She is withdrawn and vague the entire trip before asking to be dropped off by a gate. The driver responds, “But that’s a cemetery!” She smiles, gets out of the car, and walks into the cemetery. The gate automatically opens up for her.
- 1965 – Dickey Lee’s song “Laurie (Strange Things Happen)” has the singer meet a girl at a dance, take her home, and loans her his sweater. When he goes back to retrieve the sweater, her father answers the door and says she died a year ago. When he checks the cemetery he finds her grave with his sweater lying on it.
- 1966 – The song “Bringing Mary Home” by Country Gentlemen gives a rather sad rendition. When the driver arrives at the hitchhiker’s home we hear the lyrics:
Thirteen years ago today in a wreck just down the road
Our darling Mary lost her life and we miss her so.
So thank you for your trouble and the kindness you have shown,
You’re the thirteenth one who’s been here bringing Mary home.
- 1967 – “Phantom 309” by Red Sovine has the singer catch a ride with a trucker. When the driver drops them off at a nearby truck stop, he asks him to tell the truck stop crowd who sent him. The crowd goes silent in shock. One patron explains that driver died crashing his rig to save a group of teenagers he hadn’t seen in time to stop after topping a hill. We see this same scenario in:
- 1985 – “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” the driver, Large Marge, is actually the ghost. When Pee Wee gets to a truck stop and says “Large Marge sent me” the staff explains that she had died in a horrific accident.
- 1987 – “Creepshow 2” has a story where a woman accidentally runs down a hitchhiker. When she decides to drive off instead of helping him or calling for aid, he haunts her all the way home.
- 2003 – “Gothika” uses the car accident version of The Vanishing Hitchhiker.
- 2007 – the “Supernatural” episode “Roadkill” tells this story from the ghost’s point of view.
- The origin story for SCP-1337 aka Mary Talish starts out telling this story. But her spirit turned vengeful after an SCP agent tried to terminate her.
Is it Real?
Now the million-dollar question, “Did The Vanishing Hitchhiker really happen?” Unlike previous urban legends we’ve covered, the answer to that is murky at best. While there have been several police reports that mirror this tale, nothing has been conclusively proven to have happened. Though, to be fair, how do you really prove something like this?
Snopes has this listed as a “Legend.” A category they define as a rating that is “most commonly associated with items that describe events so general or lacking in detail that they could have happened to someone, somewhere, at some time, and are therefore essentially unprovable.”
And that really sums up any investigation into the validity of this story. It kind of just boils down to if you believe in ghosts or not.
Print Sources Used
- Brunvand, J. H. “The Vanishing Hitchhiker.” The Mexican Pet, W. W. Norton and Company, 1986, pp. 49-55
- Brunvand, J. H. “The Vanishing Hitchhiker.” In Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, W. W. Norton and Company, 2001, pp. 463-465
- Brunvand, J. H. “The Vanishing Hitchhiker.” Too Good to be True: The colossal book of urban legends, W. W. Norton and Company, 2014, pp. 231–234.
- Brunvand, Jan Harold. “The Vanishing Hitchhiker.” The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings, W. W. Norton and Company, 2003, pp. 24-46.
