'The Phantom Of Route 40' Terrorizes Truck Drivers In The Early 1950's

You're driving through Western Ohio in the middle of the night. Suddenly, a wild phantom appears. A forgotten piece of local trucker lore happened on Route 40 in the early 50's.

It was a dark and stormy night.....

In 1951, a "phantom driver" spent a lot of time and effort harassing and scaring drivers along Route 40 in Western, Ohio, focusing his macabre act on passing truckers. His/her/it's favorite M.O. was to completely cut out the headlights as a vehicle approached, then turn on the interior lights to reveal whatever awful get-up he had donned for the occasion. In some accounts, the "phantom" would even get out, dressed in a Halloween mask and glowing skeleton suit, further scaring the bejesus out of unsuspecting truckers. In one account, he even started dancing, which might be humorous if it wasn't the middle of the night. And it wasn't a skeleton. And wasn't really, really, creepy.

Maybe by design, "The Phantom" chose this stretch of road, which is a narrow, 2-lane path with deadly, near-vertical drops on each side. Very dangerous stuff, for all involved, and, given the time period, technology, construction, and safety equipment were certainly nowhere near 2017 levels. And this was the 50's, the height of all things UFO, sci-fi, and ghoulish. Many people literally expected this kind of thing around every turn.

This went on for several months, with "The Phantom" either moving his operations to a few other locales, or perhaps just spawning copycats, taunting law enforcement, adding green smoke, etc., but he/she/it was never caught or identified.

The Phantom of Route 40