Mystery of the White Pickup

 Mystery of the White Pickup

Steven B. Zwickel

February, 2025

If you have been following the news, you know that the past year has been one of unusual weather in the United States. We’ve had tornados, droughts, derechos (a line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds), record-setting heatwaves, and flooding.

But, if you look carefully, you may start to see one image that keeps popping up—again and again—whenever and wherever there’s high water.

I first noticed it a few months ago, when I had the strange feeling that the news I was watching on TV was a re-run of something I had seen before. The images showed muddy water rushing over a drowned roadway with a half-submerged white pickup truck.

Then I saw a similar picture of a white pickup truck in a flooded area on another newscast.

And it happened again, and again, and again.

Am I dreaming? Could  it be  the same guy in the same pickup? Are white pickups cursed? What is going on here?

You don’t need to search online for “white pickup in flood.” I already did that. This is just part of what came up:

Scary stuff, folks.