Number 10 Tombstone Thunderbird Born in a small Arizona town, the legend of
the Tombstone Thunderbird has drawn the fascination of supernatural enthusiasts for over a century.
In April 1890, a local newspaper ran a story about two ranchers who’d shot down a massive
winged monster.
They were on horseback in the desert, near the former mining town of Tombstone, when
the creature passed them overhead.
The men chased the winged beast for a few miles before they caught up with it and took
it down with their Winchester rifles.
The creature was described as an alligator with wings, which has led many to theorize
that the Tombstone Thunderbird was actually a pterodactyl.
The obvious issue is that these winged reptiles went extinct millions of years ago.
In the initial report from Tombstone Weekly, the creature was described as having eyes
as big as dinner plates and a 160-foot wingspan.
Skeptics say that the story was a fabrication in consequence of the town’s economic downturn.
Only a few people had remained in Tombstone and there weren’t many newsworthy events
taking place.
Nevertheless, in recent years, paranormal investigators have reported thunderbird sightings
across the Pacific Coast and Midwest.
Much like the creature that flew over Tombstone, these descriptions also seem to refer to a
pterodactyl-like animal.
Skeptics believe that these are simply misidentifications of the great blue heron or other large birds.
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Number 9 Char-Man This urban legend comes from Ojai Valley,
California and features an evil spirit that takes the form of a badly burnt man.
The premise generally mentions a wildfire that occurred in Camp Comfort County Park,
in 1948.
A father and son are trapped in a blaze that claims the former’s life.
As rescue teams arrive on site, they find that the boy had strung up his father and
taken his skin.
In a second version, a married couple is caught in the wildfire.
According to the legend, the man goes insane as he’s trapped and unable to rescue his
screaming wife.
Regardless of the origin story, Char-Man is still said to roam the region’s woods.
There’s a certain bridge in the park that’s claimed to be his preferred attack site.
Those who get out of their cars on the bridge will become the burnt man’s victims.
Char-Man will tear off their skin to wear as his own or as revenge for what he’s become.
Number 8 Bobby Mackey’s Music World This particular location has the reputation
of being “the most haunted nightclub in America”.
Bobby Mackey’s Music World is a honky tonk and nightclub found in Wilder, Kentucky.
The owner, country singer Bobby Mackey, claims the site was originally used as a slaughterhouse
in the early 19th century.
It was then torn down and reopened as a roadhouse until Mackey purchased it in 1978.
One of the most frequently-cited legends about Bobby Mackey’s place is that the location
hides a portal to hell.
It would presumably allow demons to wander into our realm and commit all sorts of atrocious
acts.
Another legend is that the establishment is haunted by ghosts, such as that of Pearl Bryan.
The real-life Pearl Bryan was murdered and her headless body was found in 1896, only
a few miles from the site where the night club currently sits.
22-year-old Bryan was pregnant at the time.
Two men were arrested and hanged for the killing which gained a lot of notoriety at the time,
due to its gruesome nature.
One legend claims that the men who’d killed Bryan were devout Satanists and that they’d
cursed the location.
Another ghost said to haunt the establishment is that of Johanna.
While it’s still unclear if she really existed or not, the legend says that she was a pregnant
dancer at the club in the 1950s.
She committed suicide after her father had killed her lover, Robert Randall.
He was an alleged singer at the club and Johanna’s father hanged him in the dressing room.
Number 7 Dark Watchers The Dark Watchers are shadowy figures said
to observe travellers as they go through the Santa Lucia Mountains, in California.
These featureless silhouettes appear to own human-like characteristics in their contour.
They’re sometimes described as giant-sized but no one has seen one up close.
The legend has it that they disappear as soon as people try to approach them.
The Dark Watchers were reportedly first witnessed by Spanish Settlers who’d moved into the
area.
American novelist and Nobel Prize-laureate John Steinbeck mentioned the Dark Watchers,
by name, in a 1938 short story called “Flight”.
He wrote that nobody knew who they were or where they lived.
Steinbeck also wrote that they wouldn’t bother travellers as long as they kept following
the path and “minded their own business”.
The writer’s son, Thomas, claimed to have personally seen the Dark Watchers, as a child.
He would explore the history of the legends and conduct a series of interviews with locals,
which were included in a book called “In Search of the Dark Watchers”.
Poet Robinson Jeffers also wrote about these mysterious presences in a 1937 poem.
Although they looked human, Jeffers wrote that they definitely weren’t and also mentioned
their tendency to merge with the shadows when someone got close.
The shadowy figures are generally explained as a product of illusions, hallucinations
or the misinterpretation of natural phenomena.
Number 6 Hookman This is a popular urban legend that has risen
to fame as the quintessential horror story to tell around a campfire.
The premise is usually the same.
A couple is in a parked car when they hear reports on the radio about a man with a hook
for a hand, who’d escaped from a nearby institution.
From this point, the story tends to differ.
In some versions, they hear scrapping on the roof of the car and decide to drive home quickly
only to find the hook hanging from the car door handle.
In other versions, the man is butchered by the Hookman and suspended upside down from
a tree, with his fingers scrapping the top of the car.
Another version has the man leaving the car to look for help after the vehicle has broken
down.
He returns to find that his date had been brutally murdered and left with a hook embedded
in her body.
In most iterations of the Hookman legend, the killer is presented as a faceless, raincoat-clad
silhouette.
Number 5 Ship of Death This extraordinary story comes from Wyoming
and traces its roots to the 19th century.
A US Army Indian Scout named Leon Webber was building a log cabin at the edge of the North
Plate River.
It was there that Webber saw the rolling fog begin to take shape.
An ancient ship emerged and, on its deck, the phantom crew surrounded a lifeless young
woman.
Webber was then struck by the harrowing realization that the woman was his bride-to-be.
He jumped in the water and tried to make his way to the ship, but it vanished before his
eyes.
Webber waited on the shore for signs of his beloved but she never returned.
About a month later, the man arrived at her home and was told that she’d died.
A second sighting was reported in 1887, near the town of Casper.
A rancher saw the ship and its crew revealed a woman whose face was burned and disfigured.
When he got home, the rancher discovered his wife had died while trying to escape from
a house fire.
The Ship of Death’s final sighting occurred early in the 20th century.
A man saw the hanging corpse of one of his friends only to later find that he’d been
convicted of murder and executed.
He was hanged on the very same day of the Ship of Death’s sighting.
Number 4 Curse of the Petrified Forest Petrified forests are the result of a natural
process called permineralization which takes places over millions of years.
Trees buried by floods were subsequently covered in minerals which stopped their decomposition
process, turning them to stone.
The color of the petrified wood varies depending on the type of mineral deposit.
Iron-containing minerals, for example, will produce a red hue and manganese will turn
wood pink.
It’s a stunning sight that many people are eager to explore in parks found in various
locations across the US, including Utah and Arizona.
The legend has it that the petrified forests in these regions are cursed.
It’s still unclear what force governs the curse, but great misfortune is said to befall
those who take petrified wood as mementos.
Health or relationship problems seem to be most frequent in the range of punishments
for theft.
Park officials reportedly receive numerous apology letters, along with packages of stolen
petrified wood.
They dubbed them “conscience rocks” as they reportedly represent an attempt by people
to break the curse.
Number 3 Slender Man The legend of Slender Man and his artistic
depiction were born on the Internet, in 2009, as the result of a Photoshop contest on a
forum.
Although much younger than other urban legends on our list, Slender Man’s impact is undeniable.
He has inspired numerous works of fiction in various mediums.
He’s also a prime example of a myth created on the Internet which evolved into an urban
legend.
Slender Man is depicted as a freakishly tall humanoid with a thin body and a featureless,
white face.
He typically wears a black suit and tie.
Slender Man is said to murder, stalk, abduct and otherwise traumatize children or young
adults, usually in the woods.
Some are driven insane while others fall under his influence, become proxies and commit atrocious
acts on his behalf.
Getting close to Slender Man is said to result in the rapid onset of delusions, nightmares
and paranoia.
Slender Man’s motives, abilities and habits tend to change, depending on the story teller,
but they usually involve acts of graphic violence.
What had started out as an Internet meme ultimately turned to moral panic after a series of a
violent acts committed in Slender Man’s name.
The most prominent of them was a case in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
In May, 2014, two 12-year-old girls stabbed a classmate 19 times in an attempt to become
Slender Man proxies.
The attack took place during a game of hide-and-seek in the forest.
The victim was abandoned but she crawled out of the woods and was found by a passerby.
She later recovered in a hospital.
The girls who’d committed the Slender Man stabbing were sentenced to long stints in
mental health institutions.
Other incidents connected to Slender Man include suicide attempts as well as one teenager attacking
her mother with a knife and another setting her house on fire, while her family was inside.
Number 2 Spook Hill Spook Hill in Burkittsville, Maryland, is
reportedly haunted by the ghosts of Civil War soldiers.
In 1862, General Robert E. Lee’s forces attacked western Maryland.
A detachment of Confederate soldiers were ordered to block a narrow passage outside
Burkittsville to prevent the arrival of reinforcements from the east.
The Confederates retreated after a battle that produced heavy losses on both sides.
The spirits of the fallen are said to sporadically revisit the site.
One aspect that has contributed to the legend is the fact that Spook Hill is a gravity hill.
Objects, including cars set in neutral, seem to be rolling up the incline.
The myth claims that the ghosts are pulling them towards the historic village.
In reality, it’s an optical illusion created by the partially or completely obstructed
horizon.
Without a reference point, objects in the landscape appear to be at a steeper angle.
Our minds essentially make up a new horizon and apply it to the surrounding environment.
Still, claims of the paranormal being at work on Spook Hill are quite common.
Number 1 Humans Can Lick Too “Humans Can Lick Too” also known as “The
Licked Hand” is a popular urban legend with multiple versions.
The most common is that a young girl is alone in her house when she hears a news report
about a killer on the loose.
Frightened, she secures all the entrances to her home but neglects the basement window.
The young girl then goes to her bedroom, taking the family dog with her.
At night, she hears dripping sounds coming from the bathroom but is too scared to check
it out.
She then reaches her hand to the floor, and receives a reassuring lick from her dog.
The girl awakens the next morning and goes to the bathroom only to find her pet’s mutilated
body hanging in the shower.
On the shower wall, written in blood, are the words “Humans Can Lick, Too”.
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