This is going to be fun.
Ive done so many Urban Legends videos now and you know what makes some better than others
- if theres some truth to them.
Suddenly - its not just a made up story, its something that could be true - and that doubt
- that slight bit of uncertainty - well I think that makes it even scarier.
These are 10 of the very best.
My name is Danny Burke and this is the Top 10 Urban Legends That Are Actually True.
Starting off at number 10 we have Cropsey[a].
Some of you guys may have heard me talk about this one before.
Its the story of the boogeyman of Staten Island.
He was rumored to be a homicidal maniac who escaped from a mental asylum.
He would hunt for children and drag them back to the ruins of a hospital where he lived.
Witnesses always said he had a hook for a hand.
The stories were meant to scare kids - perhaps even told to them by parents who wanted them
to be more wary of strangers.
Then, in the 1972, the boogeyman became real.
New broke of a real life Corpsey man called Andre Rand.
He was a former janitor at the local school for mentally disabled children.
Rand was arrested in connection with the disappearance of Jennifer Schweiger, a 12 year old girl
with Down Syndrome.
He lost his job over the case and move into the now abandoned school he used to work in.
He was eventually convicted of murder and police connected him to the disappearances
of 4 other children, no bodies were ever recovered.
Moving on to number 9 now we have The Bunny Man[b].
I talked about this legend in my West Virginia video.
The story goes that in 1904, a mental asylum closed down.
While transferring inmates to a new facility, one of the buses crashed.
Most of them were killed or captured - but one escaped - the Bunny Man.
He would roam the land hunting rabbits and then leaving their carcases for the locals
to find - sometimes they would be hanging from a tree or bridge.
Although there are parts of the story that don't add up - something strange happened
in 1970.
A couple driving their car at night had an axe thrown through their window by a man in
a bunny suit.
2 weeks later, another man found an ax wielding guy in a bunny suit chopping wood nearby who
was gone by the time police arrived.
Are they linked?
Is there more truth to this than meets the eye?
Moving on to number 8 we have The Body Under The Bed[c].
Ever since hotels and motels became a common part of society - people have swapped stories
about guests who discovered mattress they were sleeping on was either above or even
stuffed with the body of a murder victim.
A grizzly tale for sure, but one that was confined to the realms of myths and legends.
Then, in 1999 - a case in Colorado occurred involving a couple who slept on a mattress
containing a body.
The police kept the details of that close to their chest, but 2010, a huge story broke
when guests at a Memphis motel discovered they had been sleeping above the body of Sony
Millbrook - a missing person at the time.
Her boyfriend LaKeith Moody was convicted of the crime.
Many people were horrified, and vowed to give their hotel beds a closer inspection next
time …
Next up at the number 7 spot we have The Maine Robber[d].
For many years, visitors to Maines North Pond area reported that something strange was going
on there.
Time after time, people reported that things were going missing.
Not just one person, one time - many people, many times.
Batteries and food would vanish from cabins while flashlights disappeared from camping
tents.
People thought that either the Earth itself was swallowing it up or there was a thief
at work.
It turns out, they were right - in 2013, a game warden discovered Christopher Knight
living alone in the woods.
For 27 years, he had been watching hikers, canoeists and other visitors to the area.
When taken in for questioning, Knight admitted he was responsible for around 40 robberies
a year.
I mean, stealing batteries is one thing - but I think feel like you were being watched all
those years and then being proven right?
- Thats pretty creepy …
At the number 6 spot now we have The Falling Lawyer[e].
Ive lived in Toronto for a few years now and Ive personally heard this story floating around
- but I never thought it was true - until now.
They say that years ago, there was a lawyer who loved to show off how strong his office
windows were in his building that overlooked the city.
Every time someone came to visit, he would take a long run up - jump - and hurl himself
in the window.
Sure enough, the window would remain intact - although well never know if this impressed
his visitors.
Well, this lawyer was real and his name was Garry Hoy.
He was a senior partner at his firm with an office on the 24th floor.
On July 9th 1993, some Law Students came to visit.
He took his usual leap at the window but this time, after years of being weakened - it smashed.
Garry plummeted to his death - and the improbable story became somewhat of a local myth …
Next up at number 5 we have the Pueblas Secrets[f].
For many years, longer than people can even remember - the people of Puebla in Mexico
have talked about the tunnels - secret tunnels that were built under the city by the Spanish
Conquistadors in the 1500s.
Its been almost half a millennia since then, and the stories became legend.
People looked, but they found nothing - the tunnels became a myth - something to scare
the kids into believing there was a dark maze of caverns beneath them.
In 2014, construction workers were in the middle of an urban remodeling project when
they stumbled upon an old tunnel.
Surely the legends werent true - the Puebla History Center took over the site to investigate
and yes, it was the fabled tunnels people had spoken about.
They determined the tunnels were built in 1531, right after the city was founded.
Members of the Catholic church used the tunnels to transport treasure and other property in
and out of the city without people knowing about it.
Parts of the tunnels are now open to the public, giving you the chance to walk through the
dark halls of an urban legend that came true …
Coming in at number 4 now we have The Alligators[g].
I talked about this one in our New York Urban Legends video.
Many years ago in New York, people would say that there were alligators in the sewers below
the city.
They said a young boy once flushed his pet alligator down the toilet.
Years later, he reached into the sewer grate to retrieve a lost baseball.
At that moment, a fully grown alligator leapt up from below and ripped off his arm - the
same alligator he had flushed away.
Many people dismissed the whole story, alligators in New York?
How crazy.
However, in 1959, Teddy May, the commissioner of New York during the time of the rumours,
wrote about the alligators in his book.
He said that he and his inspectors did find alligators in the New York sewers in 1935,
they were up to 2ft inside.
It took 2 years for them to clear them all out, more than enough time for the facts to
get blurred with fiction …
Moving on to number 3 we have have The Dog Boy[h].
For many people in Arkansas, they know the stories of the dog boy.
Kids swap stories of a werewolf like man who roams around the town of Quitman.
Some even say theyve seen him - many of them might not know that the story is based on
real life.
Gerald Bettis was born in Quitman in 1954.
By the time he was a young boy, the neighbours called him evil - they said he liked to capture
stray animals and torture them in twisted experiments.
As he got older, he turned on his parents - tormenting them until, at the age of 27,
his dead was found dead in his home.
The newspapers said it was illness but others said it was murder.
Berris then kept his mother in the house until she was placed in protective custody.
His mother testified against him and he was given life in prison, where he died a few
years later.
They say that his spirit still haunts that house - and that he's often seen roaming the
area as a ghost on all fours, with shaggy hair like a dog.
At the number 2 spot now we have Charlie No Face[i].
Some of you may have heard me talk about this one in my Pennsylvanian video.
Charlie no face is the story of a boy called Charlie who once got electrocuted while climbing
an electric pole to try and see into a birds nest.
He was horrifically disfigured, his face has practically melted off, eyes, nose, mouth,
one of his ears and one of his arms - all gone.
It also turned his skin a sickly green.
Somehow, he survived and lived out his life in the small town, rarely showing his face
to the other locals.
People would share the story of Charlie No Face but because nobody saw him, the story
began nothing more than an urban myth.
But it wasnt - the story was actually true - except for the name.
Charlies real name was Raymond Robinson.
He was friendly to people whenever they did see him, and wasnt responsible for the many
hauntings associated with the legend …
And finally at number 1 we have Polybius[j].
You may remember this from my Video Game Urban Legends video.
Polybius was the name of an arcade game which kids in Portland got addicted to in 1981.
Whenever they were forced off, they felt nauseous, stressed or even had seizures.
Some people noticed the game was being serviced a lot more than usual - instead of once a
month, Polybius was being checked by men in black suits every week.
They would copy its hard drive, leave the money and be gone until the next week.
People believed that they were from the CIA and that Polybius was all part of a mind control
programme that sent subliminal messages to the players.
While a lot of this is debatable, there really was a kid who got sick during an arcade marathon
contest in Portland in 1981.
A few days later, federal agents really did seize a load of arcade cabinets - they said
it was all part of a major gambling bust.
This is where people differ in opinion, some say that the story of Polybius was inspired
by the events, others say the events are proof of the story …
Urban Legends and truth - together, they make something better than either of them.
Is this the start of a series?
Shall we look at more creepy urban legends that have their stories rooted in true events?
Or shall we just keep doing out world tour of urban legends?
Is this going to split the viewers in half?
Well find out in the comments section, thanks for watching as always guys, my name is Danny
Burke and Ill see you all in the next video!