I was wondering if anyone here knew any urban legends that they wanted to share? Maybe legends associated with their home town or stories that have been passed between their own family generation to generation.
I have always been fascinated by Urban Legends.
My favourite one was the story of the babysitter hearing the "drip, drip, drip" noise coming from upstairs... and then she goes up to find her boyfriend has been killed and the dripping is the noise of his blood..
I am sure there are many variations of these stories.
Has anyone heard the story of Resurrection Mary? The young woman who argued with her boyfriend at a party? She got angry with him, and left the party, only to be hit on the road by a driver... and now her spirit haunts the roads and tries to hitch-hike for lifts...
But do you have any to share?
Do you think these stories contain elements of truth?
There are several in this area, but one stands out for me....the legend of the "super computer" at the University of Illinois in Urbana.
Back in the 1970's, the Foreign Language building was built on the campus. The people involved in the project were said to have spoken about a "super computer" that was built at a center point in the building. According to them, the building was designed to collapse outward away from the computer rather than on it, thus saving the computer if the building were destroyed.
There is actually a bit of truth in this story. There was a computer system in the Foreign Language building that was advanced for its time called PLATO. It was in the basement of the building. The building itself, being constructed in the early 1970's was built to withstand an atomic blast, as this was during the "Cold War" when many were in fear of an attack from the former Soviet Union.
Another one that got started at the U of I (among other universities in the Midwest) was that a psychic supposedly tells of a Halloween mass murder that will occur on the campus. This particular one started in 1998 (said the psychic was on Oprah in this version), but the urban legend has been around since the late sixties.
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/campus.asp
I've heard of a babysitter, she took picture of herself with her new cellphone, sendt it to a friend without looking at it first. The answer she got was something like "nice picture quality, but who is that person right behind you?" She took a look at the picture, and without doubt, there was someone/something there with her.
She was "alone" in the room, the child she were babysitting slept in the bedroom. The babysitter ended up at a mental institution.
Thanks for sharing those Urban Legends! They were really interesting.
I've never heard of the Super Computer before Scarygirl.
Haki - That story creeped me out!!!
Any more, people?
There is actually a bit of an urban legend in my own personal town.. about a taxi driver who picked up a girl from a pub.. and she gets in the car and she acts all weird- very cold and shaky and quiet... and suddenly the driver turns around and the girl has vanished. Apparantly she was a spirit. The story even appeared in our local paper- the driver apparantly was very scared.
Where i came from there was a house by the lake , i lived in a small village where nothing ever happened , however a couple were murdered in this house. Their last name was Barnes. I knew nothing of this murder as we were very protected from anything like this and NEVER saw the news !. Anyway it has been said that these people walk the road by the lake , Sooo I remember driving from the drive in with my parents and all 5 other siblings when we came to a turn in the road by the lake , There was a man dressed in a dark robe walking on the road , he did not turn around when we appraoched , it was very dark , we did not stop but i do remember my mother being very upset and shaken , it was never talked about , but we all remember ....I still had no idea what had happened to these people and one night my father brought ALOT of Silver home , it was very valuable , he had found it hidden in the woods. ( he was a hunter) anyway he had displayed this silver on a table in our kitchen and i saw it , I remember seeing the initial " B " on it , I went to bed that night and woke in a terror , screaming and was uncontrolable , I wanted this silver out of the house but didnt know why it scared me . The next day my father phoned the police and it was discovered to have been the Barnes silver, It was hidden until the murderer could come back for it when things settled i would asume , not really sure but know the murder was a robery gone bad as they were very wealthy..I will never forget this and dont even know if they found the killers. Very scarey ...
Resurrection Mary is the age old Phanthom Hitchiker story with a Chicago area twist. The accounts do continue on a regluar basis
& there are supposed actual police reports on the siteings.
The most complete report that I know of is in the book Chicago Haunts by Ursela Bielski.
I think that it's just hype & urban legend - But ?
I submitted this when I first joined the site. Sadly Axe Murder Hollow is now a subdivision.
Haunted Places
(11-08-2010 03:58 PM)Fiona Wrote: [ -> ]There is actually a bit of an urban legend in my own personal town.. about a taxi driver who picked up a girl from a pub.. and she gets in the car and she acts all weird- very cold and shaky and quiet... and suddenly the driver turns around and the girl has vanished. Apparantly she was a spirit. The story even appeared in our local paper- the driver apparantly was very scared.
It sounds a little like the classic "Ghost Hitchhiker" story. There is a road i the US (I don't remember the name) where many travellers have picked up a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker disappears, the driver is creeped out and takes a break at a local resting stop. If he tell the locals about the experience, they all tell him "it was a ghost".
There is an urban legend not far from my home.The Munger Rd. RR tracks. The story is that if your car stalls on the tracks the spirits of children who died in a crash will push you over the tracks.
This is also a worldwide story. I've heard the story many times & have been out there - but have never met anyone with personal experience.
Sadly, this past summer an researcher studying the wildlife in this forest preserve area was struck & killed by a train at almost the exact spot of the legend.
There's an urban legend in my home state of Oregon about the Bandage Man on US Highway 101 outside of Cannon Beach. He is said to appear on a short road connecting US Highway 101 to Cannon Beach. The Bandage Man is said to be the ghost of a logger who tragically died due to a freak sawmill accident. He's a bloody figure who apparently smells of rotting flesh. He is said to jump into cars like pick-ups and convertables with the top down. He breaks windows somtimes leaving pieces of his bloody, foul smelling bandages behind. He disappears just before you reach town. Some people even say the Bandage Man eats dogs and has murdered several people.
I'm not sure if there is a specific time of day or year he appears but I think I've been on that road plenty of times (with my dog even) and never experienced anything like that. It could be because my family owns no convertables or pick ups.
