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Ask locals in Kōnan City, Shiga Prefecture, about Mikumo Tunnel, and the first thing many mention isn’t inside the tunnel at all — it’s the public phone booth standing outside it, on Prefectural Road 4 between Kusatsu and Iga. The tunnel itself is short, straight, unremarkable concrete. The phone booth is where the reputation actually lives.
The Legend
The most repeated story involves a black-haired female spirit reportedly sighted near the telephone, appearing to people who approach the booth at night. Photographs taken there are rumored to occasionally show hands or faces in places no living person was standing. A second, distinct figure circulates under a nickname rather than a backstory: locals call her “Dash Grandma,” an old woman said to appear around 2 a.m., running alongside or ahead of passing cars and staring at the driver with a grin as she passes. Unlike most tunnel ghosts, she isn’t tied to a tragedy anyone describes — she’s simply there, running, for reasons no version of the story explains.
What’s Actually Verifiable
We could not confirm either figure — the phone-booth spirit or Dash Grandma — against any documented incident or named victim. One detail is worth noting on its own: according to local accounts, a well-known spiritual medium performed an exorcism at this location at some point, after which reported paranormal phenomena reportedly decreased. We could not independently verify the exorcism took place as described, but the claim itself is a distinctive addition — most tunnel legends in Japan describe hauntings as ongoing and unresolved; this is one of the few where locals describe an intervention and a before-and-after change in the reports.
A Legend Split Between Two Locations
What makes Mikumo unusual among the tunnels this site covers is that its reputation doesn’t center on the tunnel’s interior at all. The phone booth sits outside the entrance, a separate physical object with its own distinct ghost story, while Dash Grandma is described running on the road near the tunnel rather than inside it. A visitor expecting the classic haunted-tunnel setup — enter, experience something, exit — would find the actual reported phenomena happening on either side of that experience instead.
Can You Visit?
Mikumo Tunnel remains a functioning single-lane route on Shiga Prefectural Road 4. The phone booth, if still standing, sits along the roadside near the entrance. Visitors driving through at night should treat the winding, narrow road as the real hazard — reduced visibility and tight curves matter more here than the ghost stories.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the ghost story really about the phone booth and not the tunnel?
Largely, yes — the most commonly repeated sightings are tied to the public phone booth outside the tunnel entrance rather than the tunnel interior itself.
Who is “Dash Grandma”?
A nicknamed figure said to run alongside cars near the tunnel around 2 a.m. — no origin story or tragedy is attached to her in the versions we found.
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