A social studies student asked questions of cab drivers and one of them directed at the cabbies was "have you had something unusual happen since the tsunami in 2011?" Surprisingly, a percentage of them admitted, yes.
Some of these drivers reported picking up people who disappeared during the ride, some kind of ghost hitchhikers. One even asked if she was dead.
And, these drivers were even stuck with paying the meter fair.
It wasn't just the taxi drivers. There was a considerable rise in people believing they were possessed following the tragedies.
Other citizens reported seeing people they knew who died, neighbors, who came back to their homes as ghosts.
A local Buddhist priest admitted people came to him seeking solace and told him so many stories of being haunted by ghosts that it seemed as if there was a panic on the hands of the people trying to cope.
Even creepiers, firefighters were begin called to areas that had been obliterated by the tsunami and finally a group gathered to pray for the dead. The calls never happened again.
It is said that the the Japanese memorialize dead ancestors and in a way think they keep them alive, or at least a link to them. For this reason, it's thought there is a good deal of hysteria living among the grounds where ancestors died en masse.
Besides stories of ghostly encounters, there are a lot of UFO reports, of them being over Fukishima, the site of the nuclear disaster to hovering above the tsunami as it happened.
And, in a creepy turn of events, a Japanese ghost ship showed up in Canada one year after it was swept away in the tsunami.
I suspect we will ultimately see some very unsettling Japanese movies coming in the future regarding ghosts more than ever, as well as perhaps a revival of Godzilla, given the nuclear concerns.
And taxi cab drivers have no concerns about picking up the questionable rider. In fact, ancestors are honored guests.
