Randomly tripped over this article.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201601210001> A Tohoku Gakuin University senior majoring in sociology included the encounter in her graduation thesis, in which seven taxi drivers reported carrying "ghost passengers" following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
> Yuka Kudo, 22, went to Ishinomaki every week in her junior year to interview taxi drivers waiting for fares. She asked them, “Did you have any unusual experiences after the disaster?”
> She asked the question to more than 100 drivers, and many ignored her. Some became angry. However, seven drivers recounted their mysterious experiences to her.
In the two the article described, supposedly, the "ghost passengers" got in, spoke a bit, and at some point disappeared.
> The seven drivers' accounts cannot be easily dismissed as simple illusions. That is because if a passenger climbed in their taxi, the driver started the meter, which is recorded.
> If the passengers were indeed "ghosts," they were still counted as riders. As a result, the drivers were forced to pay their fares.
Do news-writers get some kind of special training for illogical thinking? A running meter without payment (or with the driver paying) doesn't prove that ghosts exist... (It also doesn't sound like the article's writer actually bothered to talk to anyone besides Yuka Kudo?)