Blackwall Tunnel

A phantom hitchhiker reputedly haunts the Blackwall Tunnel which runs under the River Thames between Greenwich and Tower Hamlets in London. The usual account of a motorcyclist picking up the hitchhiker in 1972 seems to have changed slightly over time. In some versions the hitchhiker is male, others female. Some accounts have the hitchhiker being picked up at the entrance to the South entrance of the North Tunnel, others within the tunnel itself. Either way the hitchhiker got on the back of the bike asking for a lift to Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. Before the motorcyclist exited the tunnel on the Northern bank of the river, the passenger had disappeared. The biker feared that the passenger had fallen off and tried desperately to find him/her but found no trace. The following day the motorcyclist visited the Leigh-on-Sea address the hitchhiker had given him and discovered that his passenger had actually died years before. Sometimes the hitchhiker is described as being in biker’s leathers and referred to as being the ghost of someone who died in or just outside the tunnel in a motorcycle accident during the 1960’s. Apparently the hitchhiker has been picked up on several occasions.

Although I have not read it, I have heard of a letter published in Fortean Times in 1994, where a reader described an incident in 1960 whilst he was staying in Blackwall Lane, near the tunnel. He claimed that his father-in-law, his wife and himself heard an accident outside and upon investigating found that a motorcyclist had been killed. One week later he heard the same accident sound again with his wife at 2.00am, but there was no sign of another accident or anything to explain the noise. Therefore, maybe a phantom accident also haunts the Blackwell Tunnel.