What happened
On Good Friday, 12 April 1968, shortly after midnight, a Volkswagen Beetle crashed on the road near Barandas, about 20 kilometers from the small town of Uniondale. Her fiancé was driving, and his passenger, Maria Charlotte Roux, was killed instantly. Eight years later, at Easter 1976, the first reports emerged of a young dark-haired woman hitching a ride on this road and then vanishing from the car. The best-known story dates from Easter 1978: army corporal Dawie van Jaarsveld gave a lift on his motorcycle to a woman hitchhiker and handed her a spare helmet, but when he looked back a few kilometers later the seat behind him was empty and the helmet still strapped on. He went back to search for her and reported the incident to the police in Uniondale. Drivers also mention a sudden chill in the car and the scent of apple blossom.
Witnesses
Dawie van Jaarsveld (1978) and other motorists whose accounts the South African press has published since the 1970s; the story has also featured on television and in the film “Die Spook van Uniondale” (2014).
Explanations and hypotheses
Uniondale is an Afrikaner variant of the worldwide vanishing hitchhiker legend. The 1968 crash is real, but some details differ between sources, such as the fiancé's surname. Skeptics point to the nature of the road: a long, monotonous stretch through the semi-desert Karoo, driven at night by tired motorists, encourages microsleeps and illusions. The legend has become a local attraction – Uniondale even has an eatery named after the ghost.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
More: Wikipedia (en)