Myths and legends have a tendency to sit as seeds in the back of your mind,
waiting to grow into a full-blown panic when darkness falls. Everyone loves a creepy story,
so let's finish taking a look at the eeriest tales of each of America's 50 states.
The old Montana State Prison was decommissioned in the late 1970s, and was never an ideal place when
it was new, even as far as prisons go. It suffered overcrowding problems from the beginning, and this
was during the Wild West days following the Civil War, when conditions in general weren't favorable.
Horrible conditions led to riots, inmate takeovers, and an unusually high death toll.
Many believe this prison is haunted by the angry inmates who lost their lives on the grounds,
and given the conditions and treatment at the facility, any spirit hanging around
would have to be angry. It now serves as a museum where some visitors have claimed to
have been attacked by spirits, while others see apparitions or feel heavy, unnerving presences.
As the story goes, a teacher had been going about the usual teaching business one day
in the early 1900s at one of those classic one-room schoolhouses in the town of Portal.
No one seems to know exactly what happened, but the teacher became enraged.
First blocking the exits, she then grabbed a hatchet and methodically murdered her pupils,
cutting out their hearts, decapitating them, and placing their heads on the desks.
When the teacher's murderous rage passed, she was so torn with grief that she gathered up
the freshly murdered children's hearts and tossed them off a nearby bridge
where it's said you can still hear them beating today.
If you find yourself at a bar in Las Vegas, you might want to make sure you have friends to keep
you company, so you don't lose any body parts throughout the night. Rumors of people having
their kidneys stolen haven't just plagued Las Vegas but numerous other cities, as well.
This is how the stories say it typically happens: Someone is sitting alone at one
of the many bars in Sin City, where they meet an attractive person. The two share some good
conversations and way too many drinks, a good time that ends when one blacks out.
When they awaken — if they awaken — they'll find themselves lying in a bathtub filled with
ice. A large surgical incision in the torso gives the game away: one kidney is now gone.
"Grand theft kidney. Terrific. What about you, you got any theories? Devil worship, alien beings?"
Danville is located in the hilly south of the state,
and it's believed to be the home to a unique primate. The Devil Monkey is an
ape-like beast that lives in the woods and comes out every so often to wreak havoc.
This odd and terrifying creature was allegedly reported by around a dozen locals in 2001, but it
turned out to simply be an escaped exotic pet... or so they were told. Of course, that doesn't
explain the Devil Monkey sightings throughout the state's history, which include terrified residents
giving descriptions of giant baboons with pointed ears, razor claws, and the snouts of dogs. Since
the 2001 monkey was reportedly never caught, how do we know for sure it wasn't a Devil Monkey?
The Jersey Devil has been around for more than two and a half centuries,
terrorizing the state's pinelands. With the head of a dog, the face of a horse, wings of a bat,
a tail, and horns, and a kangaroo-like posture, the creature would surely leave anyone shaking,
but the beast is also rumored to be the child of the devil.
Centuries ago, a woman by the name of Mrs. Leeds was pregnant with her 13th
child. Having too many mouths to feed as it was
and desperately upset to be giving birth to yet another, she cried, "Let it be the devil!"
Out popped the Jersey Devil. After exiting Mrs. Leeds',
the baby demon shot out of an open window and disappeared into a nearby swamp to
terrorize the states' inhabitants for hundreds of years to come.
The stories say that La Mala Hora is a shape-shifter that appears where roads
intersect in the middle of the night. It can take on a multitude of forms, but is usually seen as
a rapidly changing black lump or a woman of the wickedest constitution. La Mala Hora will appear
to drivers who are traveling alone, jumping out in front of their cars in female form.
One of the more popular stories claims that a woman was driving cross-country when a
frightening female figure jumped in front of her car, causing her to screech to a halt. When the
driver looked around, she saw La Mala Hora's demonic visage as she pounded on the window.
Somehow, the driver got away from this powerful creature unharmed… this time.
The tale of the Cropsey Maniac is told at the summer camps in the state of New York,
and may have begun as a camp story meant to keep kids from
getting criminally out of hand and bringing a bad name to the camps.
"Andy, have you seen my swimmin' buddy?"
"Um…"
The common version of the story goes a little something like this:
A respectable man living right outside the property of a camp was driven insane after a
group of kids burned his house down. He didn't just lose his home: His child and wife both
died in the fire. Naturally, the type of insanity that afflicted the unlucky man
made him vicious and vengeful. He began stalking camps and murdering campers, making sure to leave
messages burned into their skin so the rest of the kids would know this was his work.
This myth reportedly goes back to before the American Revolution, and says that Satan comes
to Earth every night and visits a very specific circular patch of forest about 50 miles south of
Greensboro. The Devil dancing probably isn't the creepiest legend on its own, but there's
a phenomenon at the so-called Devil's Tramping Grounds that turns some skeptics into believers.
The circle of the Devil's Tramping Grounds is only about 20 feet wide,
and for centuries, it's been almost entirely barren. The few sprigs of grass that grow
there are said to grow abnormally. The locals have tried transplanting
this strange grass to other locations, but the cursed blades refuse to grow.
According to a legend derived and adapted from an old Dakota story,
the Miniwashitu lives in the Missouri River and rarely surfaces. That's a good thing,
because the last person to see it was supposedly driven mad and died within days of the encounter.
The man rambled long enough to give a description of the creature: The Miniwashitu is said to be
large, looking like a red stroke of fire as it swims through the depths. When seen clearly,
its body is covered with red fur the thickness and texture of a bison's, a single giant horn
on its head, a fin like a massive saw down its back, and a single eye in the middle of its face.
The eyewitness reportedly died not long after he recounted what he saw.
In 1972, the Defiance police kicked off an investigation into werewolf sightings. This
wouldn't have happened if a single person called in a werewolf complaint, but there were enough
people saying they'd seen something to make law enforcement believe there was something out there.
The first was a pair of railroad workers who claimed to have been attacked by a towering
werewolf while working in the middle of the night. The odd part about this story is that the beast
used a club, instead of fangs and claws. A different railway worker
ended up calling in a werewolf incident not long after the first report,
and the next sighting came when a driver caught the creature in their headlights a week later.
Due to the sheer number of reports, the police had to figure out what they were dealing with,
but the reported creature wasn't found.
"Tonight, I will kill all of you!"
"I will kill all of you!"
The myth of Shaman's Portal, located amidst the
dunes of Beaver Dunes Park in Oklahoma's panhandle, begins hundreds of years ago.
The story goes that Spanish explorers crossing this new land stopped in Oklahoma
to search for gold in the middle of the night. Ignoring the advice of the indigenous guides,
men were directed to the sand dunes, where they disappeared in flashes of weird green lightning.
The location is still known as "Oklahoma's Bermuda Triangle," and the site is believed to have a
strangely high number of disappearances since that day in the 1500s. No one seems to know where this
portal takes its victims or what it actually is, but today, some people believe the dunes are the
site of a wrecked alien spacecraft that's been causing strange happenings from beneath the sands.
The town of Lafayette, Oregon is the site of a story that starts in a few different ways,
but always ends the same. The first says a Roma woman laid a curse on the town
after her son was hanged for the murder of her boyfriend.
Another version of this myth says a witch was hanged in the town cemetery sometime in the 1800s,
and cursed the town to burn three times.
Whichever story is at the root of the curse doesn't matter as long as the myth
of the curse exists. You'll hear people in the area claim the town has already burned twice,
but according to a collection of old newspaper headlines, the town has already had several
major fires that took out multiple buildings. So, maybe there's some merit to this curse after all.
There's a myth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, regarding a phantom bus that only shows
itself to those in the most pain: those who are grieving. Whatever may have caused their grief,
anyone who wanders the streets of Philly under the haze of heartbreak will see the bus to nowhere.
On the bus, it's quiet. The passengers stare off, consumed by their own personal hell. Time doesn't
seem to move. Those who escape their time on the bus don't tend to remember many details,
like how long they were on the bus or who was driving it. The bus can hold its passengers
for mere hours or for years, that is, if it allows you to escape at all. Some on the bus
are said to ride it through eternity, locked within a dreadful sense of despair.
Some believe there is a very real version of Freddy Krueger , thanks
to a myth that predates the horror movie icon by at least
30 years. Rhode Island has the story of a man known as Fingernail Freddy.
The man-monster lives in the woods around Cumberland, Rhode Island,
and preys on similar victims to that of his onscreen counterpart:
children. Fingernail Freddy hates people, especially children, and spends his life as
a recluse to avoid them, but when campers make too much ruckus at night, it draws Freddy in.
"Boys, I need you to stop the ruckus, okay? I need you to stop the ruckus now, all right?"
This is bad news for the children, as anyone who meets this mythical
monster is unlikely to survive an encounter with the hermit.
The Gullah people have a diverse heritage, with much of it from Africa.
One that lives on in local lore is the myth of the Boo Hag.
The Boo Hag, in essence, is kind of like a succubus or incubus in that it feeds off a
person's life force. The creature — or spirit, depending on who you ask — sneaks into homes at
night and searches for sleeping victims. Once it finds one, it climbs onto the unfortunate
soul and begins to drain their life force by sucking it right from their lungs. It should
eventually fill up, but that doesn't mean it'll leave their victim alone just yet.
The Boo Hag, instead, slips into the sleeping and drained body,
settling in for the night and leaving only as the morning dawns.
As the darkness leaves, so do some of the unfortunate person's days on Earth.
The legend of the "Slender Man" really gained in popularity throughout the early 2010s before
dropping off, but in that short amount of time, it did some legitimate damage.
Local South Dakota lore says there's a Slender Man-type being in South
Dakota responsible for way more deaths — in this case, by suicide.
Much like Slender Man, Walking Sam is a tall, thin spirit you don't want to meet.
The Pine Ridge reservation has gone through a serious wave of teenage suicides and attempts.
Much of this has to do with issues that have been affecting the Indigenous population
who have lived there for generations, but some claim this is the work of Walking Sam.
Teens report this being showing up to talk them into taking their own lives,
and it's not a new legend. The being has been around in local Indigenous culture for years.
Jamestown, Tennessee is home to the old Pine Haven School, a creepy sight to behold on the best of
days. Legend says that the decommissioned schoolhouse is home to a deadly spirit.
Supposedly, a boy was washing his hands in the bathroom one day when he was jumped by
a group of bullies. They likely didn't mean to kill him, but during their hazing, they shoved
their victim into the mirror. It broke, sending a shard of glass into his neck, and he bled out.
With a dead schoolmate on their hands, they had no choice but to hide his body under the
floor to escape their deeds. But the boy’s spirit was restless: It's said that whoever
looks in the school's bathroom mirror will meet a similar fate when the boy appears behind them.
This Texas legend goes back more than 120 years,
and it's still believed by many to this very day. On the morning of April, 17,
1897, a small vessel fell from the sky over the town of Aurora, crashing through a windmill before
exploding. Since airplanes weren't invented yet, this was super shocking. Inside the
vessel was an unlucky alien visitor who didn't survive the final leg of his (or her) journey.
The townspeople believed the being had come from Mars, and Aurora was a good Christian
town where even Martians weren't exempt from their God's graces. So, they took the mangled
body of the extraterrestrial and buried it in a local cemetery with full Christian rites.
If the myth is to be believed, then we're far from alone in the universe.
"The evidence has accumulated until now,
there is no doubt in my mind that the story is authentic and there is something here."
Escalante Petrified Forest State Park definitely has a similar
rule to the countless other state parks that ask visitors not to steal relics,
rocks, and fossils, but they also have one thing more: a curse.
It's a simple one that says stealing any piece of the park's petrified wood takes the curse
home with you. Most thieves report minor things like terrible strokes of bad luck or strings of
accidents. The majority of people who steal from the park believe the myth is only superstition,
but the park's mailbox is always overflowing with packages from those who decided otherwise.
After the curse sets in, those unlucky thieves send their chunks
back to the park as fast as possible, usually with an apology.
The Brattleboro Retreat began as the Vermont Asylum for the Insane in 1834.
The 1,000-acre mental health and treatment facility, which still operates, was quite
nice and preached a philosophy of humane treatment for their patients, something old asylums weren't
exactly known for. But on the grounds of this asylum is a building with a sinister look.
In 1887, a large retreat tower was built using labor from the patients,
under the assumption that it would be good for their progression. Soon after it was finished,
as it's said, the patients began to use the tower as a convenient place to end their lives.
The number of people who've jumped has been well-guarded, but many in the area say you can
still watch a lingering soul reenact their deadly jump, vanishing just before they reach the ground.
Virginia
There are a few variations to the bunnyman story, but at the heart of the tale is an
old asylum that was closed down in 1904. Why? Because the nearby residents didn't want to
be that close to a building full of people deemed insane and potentially dangerous.
The patients were being taken by bus to another facility when the vehicle had an
unfortunate accident and one escaped. Soon after, local folk started finding
rabbit carcasses littering the woods, and realized he had been surviving on the animals.
He didn't stop with hunting rabbits, though. A group of kids were reportedly hanging out at a
bridge near the forest when a bright light shined and stunned them. The next time the
children were seen, they'd been strung up on the bridge, gutted like dressed rabbits.
Before it was Auburn, the area was once called Slaughter,
and a good portion of the land belonged to a rich man. It was the sale of his land
that started the town in the first place, and for some reason, the landowner never
left — and no one has the foggiest idea why the ghost behaves the way he does.
The spirit is supposedly seen around town, angrily walking the streets, passing through walls,
and just generally scaring townsfolk. There's nothing in the myth that explains
why he's so angry — maybe he regrets selling such a valuable piece of land — and there is
likewise no explanation for the creepiest detail about him: The ghost has no face.
West Virginia
Coal mining has been a huge industry for West Virginia,
and the late 1800s saw a spike in the coal industry. With it, there was an increased
number of Black and Chinese workers being brought out East to the mines via railway.
Well, the racist locals living near Dingess Tunnel in Dingess, West Virginia didn't like that,
so the most violent of them would hide out by the tunnel, rifles trained on the
emerging locomotives, and straight-up murder any of the incoming workers who weren't white.
Today, the Dingess Tunnel is considered one of the most haunted tunnels in the country. Given
the pain it's known for, it's not surprising. There are accounts of shadow figures as people
drive through, and the dark past of the location is said to attract poltergeists.
"Hello. They're here!"
Wisconsin is reportedly home to its own freshwater sea monster,
a creature named Bozho that is said to live in Lake Mendota.
The creature, whose myth can be traced to the 1860s,
was said in the earliest accounts to cause boating accidents simply due to its sheer size
and boaters' poor navigation skills. Bozho is supposedly seen every few years or so.
Luckily, the creature seems to be mostly harmless. No one is said to have been killed
by the beast, but many have had their perfectly good days allegedly ruined
and probably won't be heading to the water anytime soon.
A myth persists in the state claiming a ghost ship sails down the Platte River,
but this vessel differs from similar legends. The ship rolls out of a dense fog,
with sails and masts coated in icy frost. The crew huddles around a veiled image of a corpse
laid out on canvas. As the ship approaches, the sailors begin to clear the way.
The body lying there isn't of a person who's already dead;
it's someone set to die the day the ship appears. Those who witness this happening will recognize
the face as someone they already know, but they'll be powerless to help the doomed soul.
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