Gather around the campfire for another selection of the scariest urban legends
ever told. But there’s a twist to these tales.
Every single one of these stories turned out to be true.
It was an eerie sight that drivers reported all across the south in the early 2010s - a
mysterious woman in black walking along the highway. She was cloaked in black robes,
seemed elderly, and most disturbing, didn’t seem to want to talk to anyone.
She was sighted hundreds of miles apart - almost like she was a specter haunting the roads. But
the actual truth was far less creepy. She was a fifty-six-year-old military veteran named
Elizabeth Poles, and she was on a pilgrimage to Winchester, Virginia. She was taking the
walk to memorialize her two children who died - and she still didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Some legends, though, are much larger in scale.
The Mexican city of Puebla is rich in history, but legends said there was a whole other world below.
They spoke of an elaborate network of tunnels, used in war and to hide
who knows what. Most archeologists scoffed - until 2015 when an excavation discovered the
remnants of a tunnel system that was up to five hundred years old. They connected the city center
to the famous Loreto Fort, and were believed to be used by Mexican soldiers. The tunnels were filled
with centuries-old items, and are currently being renovated - and are open to tourists.
And then there are the legends with a lighter origin.
The Pixar movie “Up” won the hearts of audiences in 2009 with its story of an
elderly widower using balloons to fly his house to South America to memorialize his late wife.
And as soon as it became a hit, rumors started circling that it was being duplicated in real
life. Is it actually possible to lift a house off its foundation with balloons
and fly it around the world? And were real-life pensioners actually taking flight?
People started pulling off experiments to test the stunt from the movie - with mixed results.
But one man’s test made the news.
Okay, it wasn’t a house, but a man did take flight using balloons in 1982 - and his experiment may
have actually been the inspiration for the movie! His name was Larry Walters,
and he would soon be known as Lawnchair Larry. Attaching 45 helium balloons to a chair, he took
off from San Pedro, California. Unfortunately, he entered controlled airspace near an airport
and soon got entangled in power lines. He was arrested for improper use of an aircraft,
but to many people watching, he was a folk hero and launched a brief career
as a motivational speaker. His chair is even on display at the Smithsonian!
And sometimes, dark legends come from the happiest nights of the year.
It’s been a persistent legend going back decades - happy costumed kids roam the streets on Halloween,
picking up free candy from their neighbors. But some nefarious people are passing out tainted
candy, and the unfortunate child who bites into it finds poison or a razor blade! While this may have
more roots in old fairy tales about witches and their poisoned apple, parents have been
consistently worried. It’s led to a decline in trick-or-treating over the years, and you
can forget about passing out those handmade candy apples or popcorn balls - stick to the Skittles.
But has any child ever been poisoned by deliberately tainted candy?
The answer is yes...and no. There is no plague of evil people poisoning Halloween candy to kill
random kids, but there have been similar incidents. One dentist gave kids laxative
candies in 1959 and was arrested, and in 1964 a woman gave inedible items including dog biscuits
to children she thought were too old for trick or treating. But in 1974, the panic hit a high
when a boy in Texas died after eating Pixy Stix laced with cyanide. A manhunt ensued,
and the culprit? His father, who poisoned his own son to collect life insurance money.
It wasn’t a random poisoning, although he did distribute it to other kids who
didn’t eat it, and the evil Halloween dad eventually faced lethal injection.
Let’s travel to the dawn of the digital age, for an urban legend that haunted gamers…
It was the name on every gamer’s lips in the early 1980s - Polybius, the game you should never play.
Gamers described the odd addition to their local arcade as a mysterious, black-coated
arcade cabinet that didn’t seem to belong. When people played it, they experienced weird symptoms
including hallucinations, seizures, and a strange desire to keep playing. Making it more mysterious,
there were reports of black-suited men showing up at any arcade with the game
and interrogating those who played it. The theory was that Polybius was a government experiment.
But was there any truth to it?
The original game has never been proven to exist, but a game designer named Steven Roach claims he
was involved in a game that had to be withdrawn from the market due to its cutting edge graphics
causing seizures and other symptoms. But legends of the game persisted - and many people recalled
details about it. And while it may not have been a real game, it is now. In 2007 and 2017, games
based on the legend were created by independent software designers, and people can now experience
the game for themselves - sort of. No reports of mysterious illnesses or Men in Black yet.
Some legends date back a lot longer - and can be haunting.
Jonathan Buck was a justice of the peace in Massachusetts in the late 18th century and
had a reputation as a no-nonsense lawman. That may have gotten him cursed for all
eternity. The legend states that when an accused witch was brought before him,
he ordered her put to death by burning. On her execution pyre, she placed a curse on Buck and
on his grave, and when he died and a monument was built to him, a mysterious leg-shaped stain
emerged on the stone. No matter how it was cleaned, the stain always returned.
Was this the witch’s curse for everyone to see?
Like many of these legends, there’s some truth and some fantasy. There is no record of Jonathan Buck
ordering a witch to be burned, and in fact, burning was not an accepted punishment
in America. Even at Salem, the accused witches were hung or died through torture.
What is true is that mysterious leg-shaped stain. Those tasked with maintaining the
cemetery have long been puzzled by it, and the legend refuses to die. While there is no
proof that Buck did order a witch-burning, there is also no proof it didn’t happen.
Now, let’s turn our attention to the most iconic of urban legends - the costumed madman.
Their names strike fear in everyone’s hearts - Jason Voorhees. Leatherface. The Bunnyman? Okay,
rabbits may not be terrifying, but to those living in Fairfax County, Virginia in the 1970s,
the Bunny Man was all anyone could talk about. Legends said that an ax-wielding
maniac was roaming the area, killing people. The legend centered around Colchester Overpass,
a dark rail overpass where the killer supposedly lurked - waiting for his next victim. The stories
varied, and decades later people still claim that his ghost is haunting the overpass.
But there might actually be some truth to this story.
Unlike many of these legends, this one can be confirmed with police reports. In 1970,
there were two reports of a man wearing a bunny suit stalking around the area. He
reportedly threatened people with an ax, even smashing a car window at one point. The two
reports described the suit differently, but both said the Bunny Man tried to scare them off and
shouted about trespassing. There are no reports of the mystery man killing or hurting anyone,
and most believe he may have been an escaped mental patient or an eccentric hermit. One
thing’s for sure - he’s long dead now, but some people still claim to see him.
And some urban legends are more tragic than horrific.
In the mid-1900s, western Pennsylvania had its own cryptid. Some called him the Green Man,
others called him Charlie No-Face, but the descriptions were all the same. He was a tall,
imposing man who walked the streets at night. He looked normal from behind, but when people
approached him, they discovered something horrible - his face was horribly disfigured,
almost like he had no face at all. While some fled in terror, the Green Man was never
aggressive or violent. Over the years, tourists would roam the area hoping to encounter him.
But the origin of the Green Man is much more mundane.
Raymond Theodore Robinson was a normal boy until he was seriously injured in
an electrical accident as an eight-year-old. His face was badly burned and he was blinded,
leaving him seriously disfigured. He lived at home and worked as a craftsman of mats,
wallets, and belts, and avoided going outside during the day for fear he would startle people.
But nights were his time to roam the streets. The mysterious Green Man was an ordinary man
who was loved by his relatives and mourned when he died at 74 in 1985.
One rural mystery, though, persisted longer than any other.
It began in 1986 in the isolated area of Maine’s Belgrade Lakes. The place had few
permanent residents, but was a popular vacation location, except for one issue - the cabins kept
getting robbed. Over decades, there were over a thousand burglaries in the sleepy region,
and police were stumped. Not only was the culprit never caught, but they only seemed
to take a few items from each place and didn’t seem interested invaluable. Rumors began to
spread - what kind of eccentric maniac was living in the woods around the North Pond?
In 2013, they got their answer.
The culprit was Christopher Thomas Knight, the man who would come to be known as the North Pond
Hermit. When he was caught, his secluded camp was discovered - stocked entirely with items he
had stolen from the cabins and hidden by boulders. He had stolen to survive the winters and had gone
decades without any regular human conduct. People were stunned by his survival skills - but it
didn’t stop him from being charged with burglary. While he was sentenced to seven months in jail,
he served almost all of them while awaiting trial and became a bit of a local celebrity.
This next legend took place in the most fitting of locations - a haunted house.
Walking or riding through a spooky house is a Halloween tradition - although not all of
them are up to par. Who’s really scared of those dropping skeletons on wires, or
janky old witch figures that try to jump scare you? But legend says that at one haunted house
in California, a corpse prop looked really realistic. A little too realistic. In fact,
when investigators examined it, they discovered it was a preserved corpse.
Visitors had been gawking at an actual dead body for who knows how many years?
And the scariest part? This legend was completely true.
Elmer J. McCurdy seemed destined for a bad end, and when the notorious robber died in a
shoot-out with police, no one was particularly shocked. It was the early 1900s, and mummified
bodies were common sideshow attractions. He was first put on display at a funeral home, and then
sold to traveling carnivals for decades. But over the years, the records were lost and many people
who bought the body assumed it was a hoax. That led to him being displayed at The Pike amusement
park in California - where his arm eventually broke off, to the horror of those maintaining
the funhouse. After this grim discovery, McCurdy was finally given a proper burial.
And it’s not the only place a corpse has been found unexpectedly.
It’s one of the most infamous scary stories. A couple checks into an isolated roadside hotel
and gets a room from the shady clerk. They try to get a good night’s sleep - but their room stinks!
Eventually, they discover the horrible truth - hidden under their bed is a rotting corpse.
They’ve been sleeping in a murder room! This legend has persisted and there are countless
stories of people discovering corpses in their room - but has it ever actually happened?
More often than you think.
The most infamous incident happened in a budget motel in Memphis, Tennessee,
where a couple described the atmosphere as “Stanky and foul”. James and Rhonda
Sargent complained to the motel staff but didn’t realize anything was wrong.
There were some odd details - like fabric softener sheets stuffed in cracks around the
room. The smell only got worse, and weeks later the body of a missing woman was found under the
bed. The police were finally able to get started on the hunt, and her killer was found soon after.
But one urban legend is maybe the most common - and this one bites!
Are there actually alligators in the sewers of New York? You don’t have to worry about one thing - no
giant-sized crocs are going to leap up from sewer grates and eat your dog. But sewer alligators do
exist - and the city rescues up to one hundred every year. While some are illegal pets,
they do find some in the sewers. Because sewers are toxic, this isn’t a suitably
long-term home for alligators, and most are relatively small. But they’re probably big
enough to deliver a nasty bite to an unfortunate animal-control officer who has to wrangle them.
Check out “Scary Urban Legends to Keep You Up At Night” for more tales from around the campfire,
or watch “Horrifying Unsolved Internet Mysteries” for some digital-age chillers!