Urban legends in your area

There are a few around my hometown.....the only ones I can remember.

My High School is really old, like over a hundred years. Its an Ohio Historical Landmark. And its fancy, it has a marble stair case, original paintings and statues and such. Anyway.... it was built by th family who started the town and it was their dream. But supposedly the wife really wanted a grand chandelier to hang in the front hall but instead her husband built the marble stair case. The legend goes that sometimes late at night if you go by the school you will see a chandelier hanging in the front hallway through the windows. And a ghost lady has been seen wandering around inside supposedly.

We have "Cry Baby Bridge". Its an old bridge where supposedly a girl got pregnant out of wedlock and hid it. When the baby was born she threw it off the bridge to hide the evidence so no one would know. If you go to the bridge at night at the time she supposedly threw the baby over....they say you can hear it crying as clear as if it is right next to you. And supposedly sometimes peoples cars will break down as they go over the bridge at night and they will hear the baby until they push the car off the bridge, then it will start.
In high school we would always stop there when we passed through at night and try to hear it....we never did.

There was a pair of bank robbers who robbed a few banks in the neighborhood back in the day. They supposedly used these caves nearby as their hideout. The money was never recovered so the legend goes that the money is hidden somewhere nearby.

My High School is really old, like over a hundred years.

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Sorry this always makes me giggle. My house is that old - and it's relatively new! The church where I was brought up dates back to 1125 ( possibly parts are pre-Norman invasion)

The difference between the US - where 100 years is a long time - and the UK - where 100 miles is a long way.

On topic - one of the local churches - named Doomsday Church - has the ghost of a doctor who murdered his wife and buried her in the grounds. You can still hear her scream, supposedly

This is a nice gruesome one for ya - actually true afaia:


The last man to die of pressing in the whole of England was John Weekes of Horsham. He was charged with robbery and murder of a woman along with three accomplices, one of which was a small boy used to sneak inside the woman's house and open access for the other three. When police found stolen property in the possession of the men, they easily persuaded the boy into turning King's evidence. Two of the other accomplices were convicted, but when John Weekes had his turn to plead, he refused to say anything. Once the judges brought in eight witness who swore Weekes could talk and was not dumb, they gave him time in the cells. When he refused further to say a single word, the judges were forced to find him not guilty of murder. Instead he was convicted of 'standing mute through malice'. Weekes was placed under 3 hundredweight boards and a sixteen stone man jumped a top of him. Local folklore continues the story, extending it to include the death of his executioner days later, sometimes in the same spot where the execution was carried out.

I'm at the very northern tip of the NJ Pine Barrens, but all I have to do is drive about thirty miles south west at night, turn off the car headlights, and feel spooked by the tale of the Jersey Devil. Millions of acres of white pine and scrub, a few buildings here and there, hardly any street signs, many sand-packed roads.

One of them is Leeds Road. Back in the 19th century, Mama Leeds had 12 children. She claimed if she had another, the devil could take it. When her thirteenth was born, he came out as a devil, tail and all. Supposedly he roams the Pine Barrens and can fly. It's said he's killed livestock, leaves his tracks, makes noise (of course), and other fun stuff.

Here we have Midget Mansion. Yes, really. Midgets. Ghosts of midgets.

... a bottomless lake.

I have a headless horseman on my dad's side! Up in Pennsylvania somewhere. Not the Headless Horseman, but a scary old dead German ancestor who torments the locals in the woods

deathwizard said:

When I used to live in the Tampa Bay area, there was an urban legend about a 25-foot hammerhead shark named Old Hitler that could swallow tarpon (and presumably you and me) whole.

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That's not an urban legend. I've seen it. The shark, or at least one that was similar, was longer than my boat (22 feet) and as big around as a Suburban. Its dorsal fin rose from the surface a good four feet, and its hammer was at least six feet long.

I took a picture of the shark as it attacked a tarpon my friend had just released. We'd heard it coming from a long way. The water was flat calm, and the shark approached with a great whooshing sound as it sped just below the surface and created a broad wake. The tarpon, instead of fleeing, huddled near the boat. The shark dove, then reappeared with the fish in its mouth.

This photo doesn't do justice to the sheer size of the hammerhead, as it shows only about one third of its bulk. Part of the tarpon is visible to the left. It weighed about 180 pounds or so, as much as a full grown man, yet appeared quite small by comparison.

(By the way, hammerheads have small mouths in relation to their body size and can't eat larger prey whole. Even this one had to bite through the fish a couple of times to take in its meal.)

... even though the tarpon's tactic failed, it was pretty smart and collected of it to try to huddle by the boat to escape detection.

I live in the Hell Hole of New Hope. Supposedly there's a soldier's ghost that travels around in the area.

I tend to not look out windows after dark.

Silver King said:

That's not an urban legend. I've seen it. The shark, or at least one that was similar, was longer than my boat (22 feet) and as big around as a Suburban. Its dorsal fin rose from the surface a good four feet, and its hammer was at least six feet long.

I took a picture of the shark as it attacked a tarpon my friend had just released. We'd heard it coming from a long way. The water was flat calm, and the shark approached with a great whooshing sound as it sped just below the surface and created a broad wake. The tarpon, instead of fleeing, huddled near the boat. The shark dove, then reappeared with the fish in its mouth.

This photo doesn't do justice to the sheer size of the hammerhead, as it shows only about one third of its bulk. Part of the tarpon is visible to the left. It weighed about 180 pounds or so, as much as a full grown man, yet appeared quite small by comparison.

(By the way, hammerheads have small mouths in relation to their body size and can't eat larger prey whole. Even this one had to bite through the fish a couple of times to take in its meal.)

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Well, there are a lot of large hammerheads out there. I used to swim a lot at Egmont Key. It's probably amazing that I'm still alive.

Maybe all of the hammers wrapped into one becomes Old Hitler. And you're right about the size of their mouths.

Who do you think would win in a fight between a 25-foot hammer and a 25-foot great white?

This was the most popular one when I was a teen in my area.

13 Steps to Hell in the Maltby Cemetery.

There used to be a staircase that began at ground level and descended 13 steps below ground. I believe the legend/story was that it was a below-grade entrance to the opulent tomb of a locally wealthy family. In any case, kids used to get drunk near or in the cemetery and would walk down these steps late at night. It is unsure whether there were doors or simply a dirt wall at the bottom of these steps. Regardless, once you reached the bottom of the stairs and turned around you supposedly no longer saw the cemetery but a vision of Hell. The similarity in this story to yours is that this vision drove the subject to insanity. Anyone watching the subject walk down the stairs witnessed them stop, turn, and fall dumbfounded to their knees.

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We had one of the classic women in the river stories. I don't remember the name of it specifically right now, but the ones where the woman and her infant are killed in the river, and she continues to search the river trying to find her baby. I think just about every river in the south has one of those.

I went to college right on the corner of Iowa and Nebraska, and quite a few of the people from Nebraska swore by this legend and said they'd seen it personally. There had apparently been a house fire that destroyed an entire house, all except for the baby's things. They said that you could go out there and everything was just charred and black except for these couple of toys that were completely undamaged. I always wanted to go see it myself, but never got the chance, so I can't verify, but it was cool.

Oh yeah, another really famous Texas one that's been pretty much debunked now was the Shane Road crossing. Supposedly a busload of kids were killed at the train crossing there, and whenever a car would stall on the tracks, it would be pushed over by the kids. People even used to dust the bumpers with baby powder, and while I never did this personally, I did see video of it, and sure enough little handprints would appear. They eventually came out and said that the story wasn't true and a bus of kids had never been killed there (they were having a lot of people going out to try it), but that still didn't explain the fingerprints haha. I always loved that one, in any case.

We have a tunnel here in Japan that's one of the most famous haunted sites. My school is actually supposed to be haunted as well, and there's one building that is just incredibly creepy to go walking around in. A few years back we had a girl climb up to the roof and kill herself out there, and a lot of the teachers have stories about seeing or hearing things.

The best Japanese urban legend, though, is the Kuchisake Onna, or the Slit-mouthed woman. A long time ago, a jealous samurai cut the face of his beautiful lover Joker-style because he discovered that she was cheating on him. The story has she still wanders the area at night and will come up to you wearing a mask (the surgical kind everyone wears in Japan) and ask if she's beautiful. If you say yes, she'll remove the mask and ask the question again. If you say no, she kills you, but if you say yes she'll use a pair of scissors to do the same to you.

The really cool thing about this story is that there's a true version of it floating around as well. Back in the '70s, there was a huge scare about sightings of the Kuchisake Onna going around trying to kill children. A couple of years back, a coroner was going through records trying what really was going on. They found records of a woman who had been hit by a car while chasing a kid, and her mouth was slit open from ear to ear.

deathwizard said:

...Who do you think would win in a fight between a 25-foot hammer and a 25-foot great white?

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The great white, I believe. It's all mouth and teeth, whereas the hammerhead would be at a disadvantage by the shape of its head, which would seem to get in the way of defending itself, and a jaw that's situated as a secondary placement instead of at the forefront of attack, such as the great white's makeup.

I've seen hammerheads, both large and small, subdue their prey by squeezing them into submission, positioning the prey and folding their bodies inward like a head lock that knocks the life out of their victims. They also use their elongated heads to whack and stun their prey.

And speaking of urban legends, or in this case, sea legends, you'd be surprised by how wide a berth a pod of dolphins will give way to a single hammerhead patrolling the same area.

kaitie said:

The best Japanese urban legend, though, is the Kuchisake Onna, or the Slit-mouthed woman. A long time ago, a jealous samurai cut the face of his beautiful lover Joker-style because he discovered that she was cheating on him. The story has she still wanders the area at night and will come up to you wearing a mask (the surgical kind everyone wears in Japan) and ask if she's beautiful. If you say yes, she'll remove the mask and ask the question again. If you say no, she kills you, but if you say yes she'll use a pair of scissors to do the same to you.

The really cool thing about this story is that there's a true version of it floating around as well. Back in the '70s, there was a huge scare about sightings of the Kuchisake Onna going around trying to kill children. A couple of years back, a coroner was going through records trying what really was going on. They found records of a woman who had been hit by a car while chasing a kid, and her mouth was slit open from ear to ear.

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Oooh, I've always LOVED this one. And there are the most creepy pictures I've ever seen associated with it. But I never realized there was true version of it too.

God, I'm getting creeped our right now just thinking about it.
Thanks.

More of a rumor than an urban legend:

When the Clara Barton middle school was being built in Fargo, a circus elephant died and was covertly buried on the site. The local paper asked some of the people who supposedly know about it and they won't talk about it. They didn't deny it, they only stated it wasn't something they could talk about.


A friend who grew up near Strasburg, ND, birthplace of Lawrence Welk, told me this one about the "White Man":
A local person made a jumpsuit that was black in the back and white in front. He had a hat to match. On summer nights, he would walk backwards on the sidewalk and suddenly turn around to startle people. He could hide again by turning around. People reported a man in white from head to toe appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared. My friend knew who was behind this. They were amused when he was reported in nearby towns even though he didn't go there.

Silver King said:

The great white, I believe. It's all mouth and teeth, whereas the hammerhead would be at a disadvantage by the shape of its head, which would seem to get in the way of defending itself, and a jaw that's situated as a secondary placement instead of at the forefront of attack, such as the great white's makeup.

I've seen hammerheads, both large and small, subdue their prey by squeezing them into submission, positioning the prey and folding their bodies inward like a head lock that knocks the life out of their victims. They also use their elongated heads to whack and stun their prey.

And speaking of urban legends, or in this case, sea legends, you'd be surprised by how wide a berth a pod of dolphins will give way to a single hammerhead patrolling the same area.

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I grew up on Tampa Bay, and we used to swim right up to dolphins and try to touch them. I never got hurt, but probably out of luck more than anything else. I wonder how many times a big bull was just a few feet away from me, sizing me up, and I never knew.

Dolphins can take things under 12 feet. Maybe under 15. But after that?

And I agree with you on the great white.

There's quite a few in the area I live:

-The ghost of Peggy can be seen haunting Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia on a foggy night. She was the woman who supposedly died on the rocks of the cove when the village was founded or something like that...she's been hanging around ever since.

-Rebecca's Grave: A witch was buried in concrete along this rural road (well, used to be rural...it's getting built up now) on the outskirts of Moncton, New Brunswick. She appears walking along the road on every night that has a clear full moon.

-Oak Island: this island has everything from ghosts to hidden pirate treasure (rumours range from gold coins to the Holy Grail to paperwork that proves Sir Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays). People (lots of them) have gone all out trying to dig out the treasure. Too much happened there to name here. Click this for details: Treasure Pit of Oak Island.

-Shag Harbour: rumoured location of the second biggest UFO crash in the world after Roswell. It's about as true if you believe Roswell is true. Creepy idea. Sort of an urban legend/Canadian Roswell incident. But here's more details: Shag Harbour

These are just the tip of the iceberg.

In my area, it's the Weld county courthouse, where they had hanged a man dead on a tree in front, and left his body dangling for a day. I was just there a couple of months ago, to report for jury duty. While I had the privilege of serving on the jury, my trial took place in the modern courthouse next door. So I didn't get to spend quality time in there.

kaitie said:

Oh yeah, another really famous Texas one that's been pretty much debunked now was the Shane Road crossing. Supposedly a busload of kids were killed at the train crossing there, and whenever a car would stall on the tracks, it would be pushed over by the kids. People even used to dust the bumpers with baby powder, and while I never did this personally, I did see video of it, and sure enough little handprints would appear. They eventually came out and said that the story wasn't true and a bus of kids had never been killed there (they were having a lot of people going out to try it), but that still didn't explain the fingerprints haha. I always loved that one, in any case.

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Interesting. I bet that story got confused with one in my town, which was a huge deal back in 1961.

I used to board my mustang mare in a ranch out east of where I live. Wide open country, all the way to Nebraska. Several times a week, I'd take her out for a ride, usually covering 7-10 miles. Well, there was this stretch of road along one of my favorite routes, which ran alongside some train tracks. And every time I rode that stretch, I felt ... strange. A sadness all the way to my bones. Especially at twilight. Moreover, I always wondered why the road was so silly there--it met up with a main highway, and instead of going straight across the highway, people have to go down the highway a little ways, before continuing down that road.

Years later, my local newspaper issued a series called, The Crossing, which explained a lot. The road used to cross the tracks at a slanted angle, right where I always felt strange. A school bus collided with a train there. 20 kids were killed, their bodies strewn alongside the tracks, on the exact same dirt my horse's hooves set down on. Eventually, the county moved the road, to keep something like that from happening again.