"The Hitch-Hiker" is the sixteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone which originally aired on January 22, 1960, on CBS.

At present on vacation, driving cross-country to Los Angeles, California from Manhattan.The narration continues after the dialogue between Nan and the mechanic.

Her destination: quite unknown.Nan Adams, on a cross-country road trip from New York City to Los Angeles, gets a flat tire on U.S. Route 11 in Pennsylvania and survives losing control of the car and skidding onto the shoulder.

As she continues her trip, Nan sees the same hitchhiker thumbing for a ride again in Virginia and at several other points in her journey.

When she stops at a railroad crossing for an oncoming train, the man is situated on the other side of the tracks.

The woman who answers the phone says Mrs. Adams is in the hospital, having suffered a nervous breakdown after finding out that her daughter, Nan, died in Pennsylvania six days ago when the car she was driving blew a tire and overturned.

There was a detour... through the Twilight Zone.In the original radio play by Lucille Fletcher, the character of Nan was a man named Ronald Adams.

The Hitch-Hiker was first presented on The Orson Welles Show (1941), Philip Morris Playhouse (1942), Suspense (1942), and The Mercury Summer Theater (1946).

All of these radio productions were live performances starring Orson Welles as Ronald Adams.