The chilling tsunami that struck in Japan in March 2011 has had a chilling turn as more and more taxi drivers claim to have picked up ‘ghost passengers’. Seven of the 100 drivers interviewed by Yuka Kudo, a sociology student at Tohoku admit to having picked up phantom fares.

Kudo’s graduation thesis has avalanched from a study in sociology to one of the paranormal. She traveled to the coastal town of Ishinomaki every week for a year meeting with taxi drivers waiting for fares. She asked the same question, “Did you have any unusual experiences after the disaster?” The drivers either got angry or described strange encounters.

One said that a woman dressed in a coat climbed into his taxi near the Ishinomaki station. “Please go to the Minamihama station,” she said. When he explained that there was nothing left standing there she asked if she had died. He turned around only to find his back seat empty. That was just one tale of many.

A reason for the apparitions could be explained by the drivers suffering from PTSD as a result of having seen people die in the natural disaster.