Grafenau Phanton Hitchhiker

Grafenau was gripped in phantom hitchhiker hysteria after a 43 year old businessman gave a lift to a figure described as “a weird-looking old woman, dressed in black,” in April 1975. The driver said “She waved at me. So I stopped the car and she asked for a lift.” Some phantom hitchhikers are termed prophetic as they speak of troubled times ahead before vanishing from the vehicle in question. The Grafenau hitchhiker could possibly fall into this category and has been referred to as the Prophetic Nun. She commented on something evil that would happen, though did not go into any detail. She would not answer the drivers questions as they drove along and when he realised she had vanished he nearly crashed his vehicle into an oncoming car.

Other motorists started to claim they had had a similar experience and apparently Police Captain Siegfried Eismann threatened to prosecute drivers reporting to have seen the ghost as they were spreading panic.

This case reported in a story by George Edwards called ‘Thumbs down to ghostly hiker’, News of the World, Sunday 13 April 1975. It also appeared in The Evidence For Phantom Hitchhikers by Michael Goss.