Phantom vehicle - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A phantom vehicle has two meanings. In legal terms for insurance purposes, a phantom vehicle is one that causes bodily injury, death, or property damage to an insured vehicle, but has no physical contact; for example, a run-off-road accident caused by a car in the opposing direction drifting partly over the centre line of a highway http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?Cite=48.22.030.

More popularly, a phantom vehicle is a supposed ghostly or haunted vehicle. No such phenomena have been scientifically verified and no research on this topic appears in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. However, many people find such stories fascinating and they are common in urban legend

Urban legend

An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...

s and entertainment.

In more detail, phantom vehicle is a term describing two types of phenomenon: either a ghostly apparation of a vehicle of some kind (usually involved in fatal car crashes; the same vehicle mysteriously reappears and disappears at the spot where the accident occurred); or a vehicle that is haunted by the spirit of a person (usually the former owner of the vehicle) which sometimes appears in the passenger seat as a ghostly apparition or appears in the rear view mirror. In the latter example, the witness could often look in the backseat of the vehicle but find nobody there. Such vehicles are often claimed to be acting strangely.

Another kind of a phantom vehicle is one that suddenly appears out of nowhere at high speed and disappears. This type of phantom vehicle (mostly cars and trucks) is reported to be driverless or is driven by a ghost of the owner of the vehicle. Witnesses often claim that they see such vehicles disappearing at spots which a normal vehicle could have crashed into.

Types of phantom vehicles

Phantom vehicles can be ghosts of almost any form of human transportation, usually cars, trucks, trains, and ships.

Cars and trucks

There have been many reports of ghostly cars and trucks. A majority of these sightings come from rural backroads, empty highways and desolate dirt roads. Many of these sightings take place at night.

In 1982, two people in Lanikai, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

reported seeing a mysterious black car which disappeared and reappeared again a second later.
In 1995, an eyewitness saw a brown 1960s car that had bumper sticker
Bumper sticker
A bumper sticker is an adhesive label or sticker with a message, intended to be attached to the bumper of an automobile and to be read by the occupants of other vehicles - although they are often stuck onto other objects...

s, 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.
2004, In Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, a Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...

sedan mysteriously rolled up an embankment and hit a fence, despite the fact that the handbrake
HandBrake
HandBrake is a general-purpose, open-source, cross-platform, multithreaded video transcoder software application. HandBrake was originally developed by titer in 2003 as a general-purpose video transcoder to make ripping a film from a DVD to a data storage device easier...

was engaged and the engine was off. Some say the car was "jumping".
In the mid 1980s, three people in a sedan reported seeing a gray van heading straight towards them. Then suddenly the van vanished.
The Curse of "Little Bastard": the mid-1950s Porsche 550 Spyder in which James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...

died is said to be cursed after the accidents in which it has been later involved.
In Germany, a car mysteriously started up by itself and rammed a wall.
In 2000, an eyewitness claimed that an old truck started up by itself and blinked at him as he walked past an old house.
Early 1980s - a British motorist crashed his car in order to avoid a truck that suddenly appeared coming straight towards him and then vanished.
The curved road at the junction of St. Marks Road and Cambridge Gardens in Ladbroke Grove
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...

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.
In 2010, Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

a mysterious white vehicle that could be described as an odd looking van appeared downtown with an unusually thin metal bar on the top that flashed random bright yellow and red light patterns despite the fact the metal bar appeared solid and too thin to have any kind of strobe light apparatus contained in it. The vehicle was seen once and never seen again.
In Garden City, Georgia
Garden City, Georgia
Garden City is a city in Chatham County, Georgia, United States. It lies along the Savannah River just northwest of Savannah. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 8,778...

, police video was released that showed a white car leading police (Officer Wayne Daniels) on a wild chase, performing seemingly impossible bursts of speed and ending when the vehicle appears to drive through a solid chain-link fence without smashing it open. The matter was addressed in an episode of the Syfy
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...

television series, Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files
Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files
-Reviews:The show has been described as Mythbusters meets Destination Truth. A Variety magazine review says – "Now we know what Fox Mulder would have done after leaving "The X-Files" unit: Get his own reality-TV show!"-Criticism:...

, where in a stunt driver was able to recreate - through careful planning - the maneuver of driving under a fence that was secured only along the top.
A phantom car on West Chester Pike in Pennsylvania is the subject of a Halloween tale.

Trains

Silverpilen
Silverpilen
Silverpilen is a Stockholm Metro train which features in several urban legends alleging sightings of the train's "ghost".-Production and history:...

(Silver Arrow) is a Stockholm Metro
Stockholm Metro
The Stockholm Metro is a metro system in Stockholm, Sweden. The first line opened in 1950, and today the system has 100 stations in use, of which 47 are underground and 53 above ground. There are seven lines numbered from 10 to 19, in three groups identified by a color: the Green, Red and Blue lines...

train which features in several urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...

s alleging sightings of the train's "ghost".
The St. Louis Ghost Train, better known as the St. Louis Light
St. Louis Light
The St. Louis Light, St. Louis Ghost Light, or St. Louis Ghost Train is a supposedly paranormal phenomenon seen near St. Louis, Saskatchewan, Canada....

, is visible at night along an old abandoned rail line in between Prince Albert
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
Prince Albert is the third-largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. It is situated in the centre of the province on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. The city is known as the "Gateway to the North" because it is the last major centre along the route to the resources of northern Saskatchewan...

and St. Louis, Saskatchewan
St. Louis, Saskatchewan
St. Louis is a Canadian village in the province of Saskatchewan, south of Prince Albert and northeast of Batoche. It was founded by Métis settlers in the late 19th century, and is the northernmost Southbranch Settlement, a series of communities which range from Fish Creek in the south along the...

.
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

's funeral train was said to be haunted by his spirit.

Planes

Spirits of passengers and crew have been seen on planes containing parts from Eastern Air Lines Flight 401
Eastern Air Lines Flight 401
Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 1 jet that crashed into the Florida Everglades on the night of December 29, 1972, causing 101 fatalities...

which crashed in Florida in 1972.
In 1997, eyewitnesses claimed they saw a single-engine plane 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.

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
Mary Celeste
The Mary Celeste was an American brigantine merchant ship famous for having been discovered on 4 December 1872, in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and apparently abandoned , despite the fact that the weather was fine and her crew had been experienced and able...

is perhaps the most historically famous derelict.

Popular culture

My Mother the Car
My Mother the Car
My Mother the Car is an American fantasy sitcom which aired for a single season on NBC between September 14, 1965 and September 6, 1966. A total of thirty episodes were produced by United Artists Television....

, a 1966 TV sitcom about the spirit of a man's mother inhabiting a restored 1928 "Porter" touring car
An episode of The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...

, entitled Triangle
Triangle (The X-Files)
"Triangle" is the third episode of the sixth season of the television series The X-Files, premiered by the Fox network on November 22, 1998. The episode was written and directed by series creator Chris Carter....

, concerns a ship that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances....

and reappeared 60 years later
Supernatural (TV Series)
Supernatural (TV series)
Supernatural is an American supernatural and horror television series created by Eric Kripke, which debuted on September 13, 2005 on The WB, and is now part of The CW's lineup. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the brothers as they...

features an episode in which a truck is haunted and kills people to exact revenge.
The Car
The Car
The Car is a 1977 thriller/horror film directed by Elliot Silverstein and written by Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack and Lane Slate. The film stars James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, John Marley, and Ronny Cox, and tells the story of a mysterious car which goes on a murderous rampage, terrorizing the...
Christine
Maximum Overdrive
Maximum Overdrive
Maximum Overdrive is a 1986 American action-horror-science fiction film written and directed by novelist Stephen King. The screenplay was inspired by and loosely based on King's short story, Trucks, which was included in King's first collection of short stories, Night Shift.Maximum Overdrive is...
Wheels of Terror
Wheels of Terror
Wheels of Terror is a 1990 television movie, directed by Christopher Cain, starring Joanna Cassidy and Marcie Leeds. The film originally debuted on the USA Network in 1990...
"Trucks
Trucks (short story)
"Trucks" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the June 1973 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.-Setting:"Trucks" takes place in a truck-stop in the United States...

"
Ghost Ship
The Fog
The Fog
The Fog is a 1980 horror film directed by John Carpenter, who also co-wrote the screenplay and composed the music for the film. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins and Janet Leigh...
Nightmares
Nightmares (1983 film)
Nightmares is a 1983 film with four tales of horror, starring Emilio Estevez, Lance Henriksen, Cristina Raines, Veronica Cartwright and Richard Masur. The film is directed by T.V. veteran Joseph Sargent and began as a television project of four horror stories. The results were deemed too strong for...
The Wraith
The Wraith
The Wraith is a 1986 action/science fiction film, directed and written by Mike Marvin. The film was later featured in an episode of Cinema Insomnia....
The Ghost Train, 1923 play, and numerous film, television, and radio adaptations
The Haunted Car
The Hearse
The Hearse
The Hearse is a 1980 horror movie starring Trish Van Devere and Joseph Cotten.- Plot :Jane Hardy arrives in the town of Blackford to stay in an old house left to her by a late aunt...
Killdozer
Killdozer (film)
Killdozer! is a 1974 made for TV science-fiction/horror movie, adapted from a 1944 novella by Theodore Sturgeon. A comic-book adaptation appeared the same year, in Marvel Comics Worlds Unknown #6 .-Plot:...
Road Train
Road Train (film)
Road Train is an Australian horror film, known as Road Kill in the U.S., directed by Dean Francis and written by Clive Hopkins. It stars Xavier Samuel, Bob Morley, Georgina Haig and Sophie Lowe.- Plot :...
The Wrecker
The Wrecker
The Wrecker is a British play, written in 1924 by Arnold Ridley, who much later played Private Godfrey in Dad's Army.The play is about an old engine driver who thinks his engine is malevolent and self-aware...
Blades (1989 film)
"The Honking
The Honking
"The Honking" is episode eighteen in season two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on November 5, 2000. The title comes from The Howling, a modern werewolf film.-Plot:...

", a Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...

episode in which an evil car (Project S.A.T.A.N.) attacks robots and turns them into "were
Werewolf
A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope , is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse...

-cars".
Herbie
Herbie
Herbie is an anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle, a character that is featured in several Disney motion pictures starting with the 1968 feature film The Love Bug. He has a mind of his own and is capable of driving himself, and is a serious contender in auto racing competitions...

Both Herbie and Horace (from the 1997 film) the Hate Bug are possessed cars. Herbie, however is possessed by accident, when a photo of his creator Gustav Von Stumpfel's beloved Elsa fell in a vat of molten steel used for the car.
Phantom 309
Phantom 309
Phantom 309 may refer to:* "Phantom 309" , a hit song by Red Sovine* A project by Ooberman bassist Steve Flett...

from the song of the same name, and from the song "Big Joe, Red Sovine, & Phantom 309" (which was based upon Red Sovine's version of the song "Phantom 309"). Driven by the ghost of "Big Joe", who sometimes gives rides to hitchhikers. In the latter song, it is suggested that the ghost of Red Sovine is also riding with Big Joe in Phantom 309.
Riding with Private Malone
Riding with Private Malone
"Riding with Private Malone" is the title of a song written by Wood Newton and Thom Shepherd, and recorded by American country music artist David Ball. Released in August 2001 as the first single from his fifth studio album Amigo, the song reached a peak of #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles &...

, a 2001 country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

song recorded by David Ball
The Godfather II: The Video Game
The Godfather II (video game)
The Godfather II is a 2009 video game based on The Godfather Part II, a 1974 crime drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and co-written by Coppola and Mario Puzo. The game is published by Electronic Arts and was released on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows...

, in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

sometimes a ghost car would drive along the roads.
The Ride (song)
The Ride (song)
"The Ride" is the title of a song written by Gary Gentry and J.B. Detterline Jr., and recorded by American country singer-songwriter David Allan Coe. It was released in February 1983 as the lead single from the album, Castles in the Sand...

has the 1950s Cadillac driven by the ghost of Hank Williams, Sr. An updated version of the song involves Dale Earnheart giving the singer a ride with his NASCAR Cup car "A stock car painted black.".

External links

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