History Main / BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts

* Stan Ridgway's "Camoflauge" is a very odd variant where the ghost of a dead Marine helps another Marine survive a battle in Vietnam.

* The contemporary folk-style song "Ferryman" by Mercedes Lackey and Leslie Fish offers another version of the reversal. The encounter here is between a young girl seeking to cross a river in a violent storm, and a ferryman who agrees to take her without charge. Although the tone implies an unworldly nature to the girl, in the end it is the ferryman who is revealed as the ghost. This version includes a garment as a token: the girl?s shawl, left as a pledge for the fare, is found in the morning on the ferryman?s grave.

* The above Apparition variety is beautifully subverted in the DouglasAdams novel ''DirkGently's Holistic Detective Agency'', where the driver of a car is horrified when he sees the ghost of his boss appear in front the car. The ghost, on the other hand, is horrified to see another ghost ''in the car's passenger seat''.

* A popular {{Bollywood}} horror movie of the 1970's ''Bees Saal Baad'' has the sequence where the leading man gives a lift to a beautiful woman on a stormy night. Her manner is mysterious and answers questions vaguely and she asks to be dropped off at a gate. He says "But that's a cemetery!". She looks at him, smiles engimatically and gets off the car and walks into the cemetery. The gate opens automatically for her.

* Although ''TheHitcher'' has a living hitchhiker, John Ryder [[spoiler: has no social security number, driver's license, or any other indication that he exists]]. Oh, and he's a psychopathic killer that beats down anybody he pleases. [[{{Antwan}} This troper]] thinks it's close enough.

* The Hawaiian version of the Phantom Hitchhiker casts the volcano goddess [[{{Tsundere}} Pele]] in the role of the mysterious hitcher. She can appear as a young girl, a "Lady" who exudes a royal presence, an extremely old woman, or ''all three'': in one memorable story a slightly drunk guy picks up a young teenager who seems to age a little every time the driver glances at her. The last time the driver sees her, she is now an extremely old woman! She laughs loudly and then vanishes, instantly sobering the guy up. The early meeting he has to go to the next morning is "quite successful".

* In the pilot episode of ''GreatestAmericanHero'', Ralph and Bill keep passing the ghost of a dead man in the desert.

** Another episode had the hitchhiker turn out to be a (non-evil) old hag.

* An episode of ''FreakyStories'' tells the classic version of the urban legend. A man picks up a hitchhiking girl on the road; she disappears during the drive but leaves her jacket. The man goes to her house to return the jacket, but is greeted by a woman saying the girl died several years ago, wearing that same jacket.

* The "Apparition in front of the car" variant is used again in an episode of ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' - the Batmobile turns a corner and Batman thinks he's just managed to run Robin down, though in fact it's a hallucination caused by the [[JonathanCrane Scarecrow's]] fear gas.

[[AC:Mythology]]
* Many pre-Christian mythologies in Europe have similar stories relating to individuals encountering wandering Gods looking for a room for the night or on the road. It was considered a very good idea to give them room and board with stories of those who refused being punished and those who gave willingly being rewarded for their hospitality. In NorseMythology Odin is a particularly common culprit in these stories and is usually identified either by Him missing an eye, a broad-brimmed hat, or a long coat often all of the above being involved.

* GURPSInfiniteWorlds also has a double inversion: troubled people might get picked up by a mysterious stranger who gives them life-affirming advice before dropping them off. Turns out he's some kind of supernatural being (not necessarily a ghost) who drives [[AlternateReality across worlds]] for this very purpose.

* Inverted in ''Pee Wee's Big Adventure'': Pee Wee Herman isn't a ghost, but Large Marge, who picks him up, is. The scene is also pure NightmareFuel.

[[caption-width-right:350:Going Our Way?]]

* Another Hawaiian ghost is an elegantly dressed Philippino man with bare, cracked feet. He haunted (or still haunts) a busline in downtown Honolulu.
** Okay now that's just plain FAIL...it's [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Pilipino]].

* In the Philippines, most the more extravagant Ghost stories all concentrate on one of two roads: The long and winding Kennon Road going up to the mountainous Baguio (pronounced Bah-gyo) and the imfamous Balete (Bah-leh-teh) Drive. The former had an interesting version of this trope that explained why Taxi drivers always made sure to have someone else in their car when driving on that road. As soon as there is no one else with you on the road (either in the car or on the street itself) the backseat will fill with ghosts of those who died in landslides/wars/calamities, and for every twist and turn in the road, they must honk the horn for one of them to go away.
* There's another one from the Philippines - a woman in white would flag down Taxi drivers in the middle of the night and ask them to go to a certain cemetery. Once there, when the Taxi driver turns around, the woman is already dead, and her eye sockets, nostrils and mouth are stuffed with cotton and gold coins. Apparently, a few Taxi drivers have died from heart attacks from such meetings.

[[TheHauntedMansion http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/HitchHiking_Ghosts2.JPG]]
[[caption-width:400:Going Our Way?]]

->I pulled along the side
->And offered her a ride
->Like the rolling mist she floated inside
->As we pulled away
->She had nothing to say
->So I guess it doesn't matter anymore
->- ''I Guess It Doesn't Matter Anymore'', Blackmore's Night

** [[Spoiler: But ... who tells us the story then?]]

* The "Apparition in front of the car" variant is used again in an episode of BatmanTheAnimatedSeries - the Batmobile turns a corner and Batman thinks he's just managed to run Robin down, though in fact it's a hallucination caused by the [[JonathanCrane Scarecrow's]] fear gas.

*The ''{{Supernatural}}'' episode "Roadkill'', where we see it from the ''ghost's'' perspective. For that matter, it happened in the pilot.

*The ''{{Supernatural}}'' episode "Roadkill''. For that matter, it happened in the pilot.