We all heard the legends and the myths behind them but are they true? Or just made up to scare children and teens straight? Well here are 13 True Urban Legends.
The Dead Body Under The Mattress/ The Legend:
You know the story. A guest checks into a hotel and goes to his room when he starts too get settled in he smells something seriously rank. After some lifting and some investigating he finds a corpse under the mattress.
The Truth: Horrifyingly and grossly enough this has actually happened on more then one occasion. There have been documented cases of guest and hotel staff finding dead bodies under hotel beds and mattresses in Atlantic City, N.J., Las Vegas, Kansas City, and numerous times in Florida, NY, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, and California. So the next time you're in a hotel, don't just assume that weird smell is coming from you're travel companion. Call the front desk and high tail it out of there, or if you're feeling brave stay in a different room.
The Hanging Corpse Halloween Decoration:
You've probably heard of the camp fire stories of a woman hanging from a tree as a Halloween decoration... Except the decoration was actually was a lynched woman. A real life, dead lynched woman, and no one realized it until it started to reek.
The Truth:
Turns out, it's sort of true, but the woman wasn't lynched - it was suicide. In October 2005 in Fredericksburg, a woman hanged herself across the street in her neighbors yard which was decorated for Halloween. The death went unreported for hours because everyone who passed by, thought it was a really disturbing prank.
The Man Who Was Buried Alive:
The scratches inside the coffin, the muffled screams you can't quite place, the knocks from underground - for a long time. Since the 1800's we've all heard these types of stories and all became scared to death of it happening to us or, a beloved family member, friends, and even pets. Yes this legend accrues in multiple different versions. Some state that the person is found and has no heart beat is not breathing, when he gets to the morgue, just seconds before the autopsy begins he wakes up and walks out scaring the doctor half to death.
The Truth: Since the 1800's there have been 219 documented stages of near premature burials and 149 cases of actual premature burials. To combat being buried alive in times before the phrase flat line meant anything, coffins were actually made with safety measures, like bells, to warn outsiders that hey I'm alive. Even more terrifying there were about a dozen cases of dissection and embalming done on bodies that weren't even dead yet.
The Carnival Mummy:
A bunch of kids touch and marvel at a mummy in a carnival display, not realizing it's an actual mummified corpse of a real person, in fact nobody knew he had been traveling with the carnival for over 25 years.
The Truth: Believe it or not this actually did happen and became famous for a couple days in the news. It all happened in 1976 at Nu - pike Amusement park in Long Beach, California. A camera crew tried moving the mummy when its arm came off upon picking it up and looking at it they found bones, turns out the mummified body was that of criminal mastermind Elmer McCurdy, who was killed during a shot out in 1911. But the weirdness doesn't end there. After McCurdy was killed, his embalmer was so pleased with his own work that he charged people nickels to come see the body... And encourage them to put them in McCurdys mouth.
The Hanging Prank:
At a Halloween haunted house attraction a teen pretends to hang himself as an attempt to make it look like he has just committed suicide. as each group goes through he does the same stunt, until an hour later when on this jump the safety cord snaps leaving only the rope around his neck to keep him from falling, because its a haunted attraction no one thinks anything about it so it remains unreported. later while closing up the other actors try and try to get a hold of him through an ear piece they would talk through but he wouldn't answer so the people who ran the attraction go to his spot, only to find that he's been dead for hours.
The Truth: This really has happened more than once, and mostly by teenage boys, although I have also heard about a few girls doing it to and it never ended happy for them. So the rule here is don't pretend to hang yourself its not funny and it always comes back around to you.
Dead Body Wrapped In A Rug:
Before the days of craigslist and e-bay, if you wanted a used rug, you had to pick one up off a curb. So im going to give you the version I was taught for this urban legend. It starts out in New York where a man needed a new rug but couldn't afford it so he took to the street to find a used one instead, after hours of driving around he was ready to call it a night when he rounded one last corner he seen a rolled up rug laying out by the street he pulled over and picked it up and drove home. he puts in the closet as he cant put it out for a few days as he's really busy, after a couple days he notices that its really starting to smell in his small apartment so he cleans the place but still leaves the rug in the closet, a few more days go by a the smell is worse this time he looks everywhere for the smell it leads him to the rug. he picks up the rug and unrolls it only to discover a woman that been handcuffed and had duck tape over her mouth she had been stabbed multiple times.
The Truth: A group of Columbia University students in 1984 had picked up a rug on the side of the road and brought it back to where they lived, when they unrolled it and a decomposing corpse of a man fell out.
Woman Buried Alive With Engagement Ring:
The story goes that a man who had been with this girl since high school finally popped the question to which she said yes, well after a year of engagement the guy believed she was too ugly to marry so instead of breaking up with her he buried her alive, but he couldn't keep her down cause she used her engagement ring to dig herself out.
The Truth: This really did happen in Poland in 2011. A man or less of one I should say decided his fiancé wasn't pretty anymore and he simply could not marry her, so him and his buddy decided to "kill" her, stuff her inside a television box, tapped it shut and buried her. Because they were so brainless, they messed up, one she was alive, two she used the ring to cut the tape off the box, and three they used her credit card so the police had an easy job of catching them.
An Elevator Cant Decapitate Someone:
We all hear about the stories of elevators, like the ones where the cord snaps and sends you falling 10 stories to your death, which has happened. And we heard about the one where the elevator doors close around your neck and as it rises you loose your head. But is it actually true?
The Truth: Yes it has happened on more then one occasion, the most recent happening in 2003. At a Huston Hospital, doctor Hitoshi Nikaidoh found himself trapped between the doors, and as it rose, his head came off. But how can these things happen? It turns out elevators take a lot of care and maintenance so during that time they're actually being controlled by the men working on them as opposed to a computer. Sometimes the computer messes up, so if your feeling lucky use the elevator, but ill be using the stairs.
The Case Of The Unnoticed Home Invader:
You would definitely know if a stranger from of the streets was living in your house right? According to the legend a man who lives in a New York apartment, at first he was really comfortable in it but one day he felt very uneasy like someone was watching him. He started to notice some of his things we missing or slightly be moved. One day he sets up a camera and went to bed, the next morning he goes to rewatch the tape he notices a woman coming out of his closet and eating his food and taking showers. He calls the police who arrest her and that's when she tells them she homeless and was hungry and cold and she had been hiding in his closet for a year.
The Truth: Yes this really happened to a guy in Japan in 2008, this guy felt something just wasn't right when his favorite snakes went missing, so he set up surveillance and reeled back in horror when he found out a woman who was homeless had been living in his cupboard for a year. But that's not the only story of a person hiding in your house one family once found people living in their freakin walls, Freaky.
Phone Calls From The Dead:
You've heard the stories: A loved one dies and suddenly you start to get phone calls and text messages from their number and you think its some kind of sick prank.
The Truth: It has really happened more than once. With most recent one happening in 2008 when a commuter train in California collided with a freight train, 25 people died that day one of them Charles Peck called his family 35 times. So what's scary about that? It happened just after he died, police confirmed it after they found him and his cell phone.
Charlie No Face/Green Man:
If you go to a highway diner in western Pennsylvania and ask if they've seen the green man, you might hear some silverware clanking to the floor. "The Green Man" or "Charlie No-Face" is a long standing urban legend of a great glowing demon or entity that wonders the backcounty roads at night.
The Truth: Is a person named Raymond Robinson, who was nearly fatally injured in an electrical accident when he was young, he ended up losing his eyes, nose, an ear and one arm. His skin which was so badly damaged, it gave off a strange hue, which is where he got his name from. And he walked the back roads at night so he wouldn't cause mass hysteria.
The Hook:
Everyone knows about this urban legend, A teenage couple goes to lovers lane where they start to get cozie but as a little time goes by the girl realizes she doesn't want this to happen in the car plus she's starting to feel uneasy, but the guy isn't ready to go so he turns on the radio turns it to a station that plays romantic music, she starts to relax again. Then all of the sudden a bulletin comes on the radio to look out for an escaped serial killer who could be heading to lovers lane. The girl insist they leave immediately but they guy refuses he hasn't gotten what he came for, the girl is out of the mood and keeps insisting they leave, finally the guy gives up and they leave, upon dropping her off he gets out of the car goes over to her side and that's when he finds the hook.
Another legend goes about the same way except at the ending when they try to leave the car ran out of gas, so he gets out of the car and walks to the nearest gas station and she falls asleep only to be startled awake by the sound of scratching on the roof of the car, she soon falls asleep again only to be scared awake by a police officer the next morning, they huddle her out of the car telling her not to look back. When she finally does look she sees her boyfriend hanging upside down and the scratching see heard on the roof that night were his fingernails.
The Truth: Well believe it or not this is based on a true event, it all takes place in a town called Texarkana during the Moonlight Murders, these took place on lovers lane as well and instead of a hook it was a gun. The Zodiac Killer is another killer who murdered couples when they were alone.
Cropsey:
The Cropsey legend started in the 70's and 80's as a the boogey will get you scare.
The Truth: Is this is a real thing that actually happened. it all started when seven children went missing on Staten Island, in N.Y. Well on the island in the woods was a mental facility for children where a man by the name of Andre Rand worked for the facility named Willowbrook State Facility, when it shut down he moved into the woods. He was a drug dealer, and user, and possibly an occultist with a lengthy rap sheet, which made him the perfect person for the murders. Though he was never charged with the child murders, he is currently spending 50 years to life in prison for kidnapping and 1st degree murder, since he has been locked up the children have stopped disappearing, it should be noted the island had been looked over and over again for the children or their bodies and none were ever found.
