Case file · Haunting
Ghost passengers of Ishinomaki
A 2016 graduation thesis by Tōhoku Gakuin University sociology student Yuka Kudo recorded seven Ishinomaki taxi drivers who said passengers vanished from their cabs after the 2011 tsunami.
2016 CE · 38.43, 141.30 · status: account
The account
Kudo interviewed more than 100 drivers. One said a young woman asked to go to Minamihama, a district wiped out by the tsunami, then asked 'Have I died?' and was gone. The drivers had started their meters and logged the fares.
The sceptical view
Researchers and local psychiatrists connect the accounts to grief and trauma in the worst-hit districts; the stories were told years later and cannot be checked.