The Mysterious Hitchhiker

This is hopefully my first explanation in this blog that deals with a strange incident that happened in Sintra,Portugal. I told myself it is better to start off with the explanation and brief details of the accident and then post the video followed by what I think of this accident.

In April 28th 2006, there were 3 teenagers on a trip in Sintra along a highway, 2 guys and 1 lady, one guy in the back filming with a video camera. They have this chit-chat along the way that evolves around their lost track and that they had no idea of where they are going, 5 minutes or so through the video, they hit the highway in which they stop for a female hitchhiker, the hitchhiker gets in and ask for a ride just a few miles up ahead. When she rides with them, the camera starts to distort continuously as if the hitchhiker had some electromagnetic or static effect on the camera, about 2 minutes later, she points out to the spot and says in portoguese translated into English "this is where I had an accident and died", and that is right when she looked at the cameraman and screamed, the car flips over killing both the guy and the lady in front. The cameraman survived the accident and was later unable to explain what happened in that mysterious accident.

Police later examined that the hitchhiker was believed to be a ghost of a girl named Teresa Fidalgo who had an accident on that same spot in 1983 and died, some also said that that was a blind curve in which many died in through the years and one which is known to be fatal.

This video is claimed to be a hoax and that is what I think of it, though it is professionally designed and edited to look real. While on a research I found that this video was created and sold at www.acurva.net and was known to be the most viewed short film in Portugal. The website has Portuguese content which is not available in English translation.

I would appreciate anyone who could translate that web page for me, and now I am gonna list my own thoughts and explanations of this video and what proves it would be fake:

1. If you noticed, there were no other vehicles, no obstacles on the road at all. The car was on a straight road, travelling at low a speed and out of a sudden, it seems that the car just overturned.

2. Seems like the camera had been ‘dropped’ (I have strong urge to use the word ‘placed’) at a deliberate angle. It is doubtful that the camera actually remained intact (and running), with not even a scratch on its lens. The camera’s movement in this sense (a crash) is especially doubtful. The impact and manner of the ‘crash’ is also questionable.

3. The mobile phone image that kept appearing (and disappearing) and the slight ‘pixelation’ towards the end suggest that the video could have been edited. It is worth noting that the mobile phone was removed/simply disappeared just before ‘Teresa’ appeared. The mobile phone could have been used to produce the distortion effect on the camera. (It is possible to produce such effects depending on type of recording equipment and/or mobile network used.)

4. As for the blurry effect/distortion when the ‘Teresa’ entered the car. How i should i put it? You can try switching on/off your mobile phone (or make a call) right in front of a cam or even your CRT monitor. See the effects. (Don’t do this repeatedly, it damages your hardware component!) - This distortion, and the ‘pixelation’ towards the end, do not fit together. ‘Pixelation’ usually occurs when there are interference on digital equipment or due to some ‘post-production’ glitches. The effect when ‘Teresa’ entered the vehicle, however, suggests that an analog equipment could have been used instead OR the clip could have been post-edited. (I won’t go into details here but again I’d like to stress that it is possible to produce such effects depending on type of recording equipment and/or mobile network used. I use ‘could’ as I could be wrong too.

5. There are suggestions on other forums that this group of youths came from Brazil, not Portugal. (someone derived this from the variation of Latin which they used.)

6. A search on google and yahoo! did not indicate any official record of the 1983 accident in the first place. Most sites found boil down to local belief, rumour etc. There is no concrete evidence to even suggest that the 1983 accident, or this video, is authentic. (I probably did a lousy search. If anyone finds anything, please provide the link here. thanks.)

7. Personal experience and articles from professional paranormal groups have convinced me that it is unlikely to capture so-called ‘ghosts’ (in simple terms) in such solid human forms. It may appear to an individual as such but it is almost impossible to capture this on camera. In most instances, ‘ghosts’ are often captured on cameras as ‘orbs’, shadows, balls/flashes of lights etc.

8. The information about David’s survival, how the police found the video and how ‘Teresa’ died at the same spot… All these were gathered SOLELY from the subtitles of the clip.

9. Last but not least, these are of course, my personal opinion. I’d very much appreciate any comments or links to sites that indicate otherwise