Footage has emerged of a ‘ghost’ in Japan following a man into a taxi.
The chilling footage appears to show a an eery shadowed figure following a passenger into a taxi. The footage has sparked polarised opinion on the internet.
Some viewers have described the figure to resemble Japanese horror character, Sadako, from The Ring films, due to its hunched posture and dark long hair.
Others have questioned its authenticity, citing clever software editing skills for its creation.
Taxi drivers in north-east Japan have reportedly been seeing “ghost passengers” since the area was devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. 19,000 people were killed after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami to rage towards Japan in 2011.
The Asahi Shimbum reported in its sociology study that at least seven drivers had reported picking up “phantom fares”. Yuka Kudo, the Tohoku Gakuin University student behind the project, found that drivers were led to believe that they were picking up genuine customers in each incident, only to find that their passengers had disappeared upon arriving at the destinations.
Kudo alludes the ghost’s wandering spirits to their broken love life,
“Young people feel strong chagrin [at their deaths] when they cannot meet the people they love… As they want to convey their bitterness, they may have chosen taxis… as a medium to do so.”
