From corpses under the bed to bogey man snatching children we look at 9 urban legends that turned
out to be true.
9.
Tug of War • Ever heard the urban legend about a game
of tug of war that goes awry when some dude’s arm gets tugged all the way off?!
It’s actually happened twice.
Dislocated, I could understand, but no, pulled all the flipping way off.
• In China, there was a massive game of tug of war with 800 people on each side and
because of the force the rope snapped.
The power of the rope snapping severed two men’s arms.
Both were standing at the front of either team.
Luckily the arms could be surgically reattached.
• Still, we’re officially going to have to change the saying to, “It’s all fun
and games ‘til someone loses an arm.”
8.
Fun house corpse • Ever heard the one about the fake dead
body at a carnival that turned out to be not so fake?
Well that’s what happened to Elmer McCurdy.
• An outlaw whose remains were never claimed so the funeral home put him on display and
charged people to come and have a looksee.
But some carnival folk claimed the body for display in their fun house.
• Years later a TV crew filming “The Six Million Dollar Man” in the fun house moved
McCurdy’s body thinking it was just a prop but one of the arms fell off revealing the
skeleton underneath.
The body was finally buried with a layer of concrete of top to stop McCurdy from being
put back to work.
7.
The Green man • The green man was a Pennsylvanian tale
about a disfigured ghoulish figure that wandered the roads at night.
As it turned out, this figure was very real but he wasn’t menacing or preying on unsuspecting
tourists.
• Raymond Robinson lost both eyes, nose, an ear and one arm in an electrical accident
when he was a child.
The accident caused him to have a green hue.
To avoid freaking people out he would go out at night instead of during the day.
• He’s like the Boo Radley of Urban Legends, or Shia Labouf, he stood out but was totally
harmless and just wanted to be left alone.
Actually Shia Labouf might not want to be left alone, but we hear he’s mostly harmless.
6.
Black water • So the taps are releasing torrents of
black water; not a dirty brown, but black, sour smelling water.
Something rank is in the air and in the water supply.
• This actually happened at an apartment complex in LA where residents waited a week
before complaining about their blackened and sour tasting water.
Then maintenance goes to check the tanks and finds that a young woman had somehow fallen
in and her decomposing body had begun to liquefy.
• Brutal.
Just remember that if you want to avoid contaminated corpse water and paying for a butt load of
therapy: get the maintenance guy to check it out ASAP.
5.
The body under the bed • A couple spend the night in a hotel and
something smells rotten.
Like rotting meat sautéed in three day old milk.
Not wanting to cause a fuss they unfortunately spend the night on top of a rotting corpse.
• This one has happened so many times across the world, it’s ridiculous.
Apparently lots of murderers aren’t the type to plan ahead so they resort to stuffing
the body of their victim under the bed, or into the mattress.
• Kudos for the couple for waiting until the next day to complain though.
What a couple of troopers.
Though if anything would make you more of a complain-y consumer, it’s this.
4.
A Brain Bug Infestation • We’ve all heard the one about a guy
who has a bug lay their eggs in his skull eating their way to the brain.
• When tourist Rochelle Harris came back from Peru she could hear a persistent scratching
noise in her ear that kept getting louder and louder.
Eventually she decided “I should probably see a doctor” but not until she saw a fly
exit her ear.
Doctors revealed a nest of flesh eating maggots burrowed 12 mm into her ear canal.
• Unfortunately the closest Rochelle got to getting laid on her holiday was having
maggots laid in her ear.
Better luck next time Rochelle!
3.
Cropsey • On Staten Island the legend of Cropsey
was well known amongst children and teens alike; an escaped mental patient snatched
children from the streets in the dead of night.
• For a time people thought it was just a story conjured up to stop children from
playing in abandoned buildings.
Until one day when a 12 year old girl went missing and her remains were found near one
of Çropsey’s campsites.
• His real name is Andre Rand and he actually an ex-employee of the shutdown Staten Island
institute.
He was convicted of kidnapping two children but it’s suspected that he snatched and
murdered many more.
Don’t worry though, he isn’t eligible for parole until 2037.
2.
Buried Alive • Being buried alive used to happen a lot
back in the days of early medicine, so much so the rich and paranoid could be buried in
a safety coffin, which allowed the ‘no-so-deceased’ to ring a bell from six feet under.
• Remember though, these doctors still thought leeches were good for you and had no clue
they should be washing their hands after cutting up corpses.
• This even happened to a woman recently except that her boyfriend buried her.
She used a ring he’d given her to untie herself.
She was just lucky he’d only buried her in a shallow grave so she was able to dig
her way out.
When he finally gets out of jail maybe he’ll have learnt how to dig a proper grave.
1.
Waking up in an ice bath • The old tale goes: you wake up in an unfamiliar
bathroom, confused and freezing in a bath filled with ice.
You look into a grimey mirror and see some fresh wounds on your back and your kindeys
are gone.
• It’s a horror cliché by now, but this totally happened to a guy who woke up missing
both of his kidneys.
He’d had a meeting with his new bosses but it turns out they were shopping around for
some organs to sell on the very lucrative black market.
• Poor guy.
So the next time your boss tells you to pull your finger out, remember it could be worse.
Wayyyy worse.