Urban legends about monsters. Ten Creepiest American Urban Legends

Although there was no tabloid press and the Internet in the Soviet Union, the genre of so-called urban legends still existed at that time. There were real "horror stories" passed from mouth to mouth and sometimes passed off as the truth.

Maggots in kvass

They told, for example, that once a barrel of kvass turned over - the same one that was sold on the streets, poured into mugs and cans. And it turned out that giant maggots were moving at the bottom of the barrel (for reference: maggots are worms that eat the decaying bodies of the dead). This legend also existed in another version: a human corpse turned out to be at the bottom of the barrel! And buyers drank this kvass ...

Foreign pests

It was difficult to buy delicious sweets in the USSR, they were very scarce. And so a legend was born: foreigners allegedly approached Soviet children on the street and treated them to chewing gum or sweets that were infected with tuberculosis or syphilis. Alternatively, sweets were stuffed with needles, pieces of razor blades or whalebone.

Infected Jeans

Good branded jeans in the Land of the Soviets were also a terrible shortage. They were often bought from black marketers, who, in turn, bought them from foreigners. And they were selling jeans infected with syphilis. Or "in the load" to the jeans was a bag of fleas or lice.

Rat in kindergarten

The story is like this. Rats were poisoned in one kindergarten. And then the animal, swallowing rat poison, accidentally fell into the cauldron in which the cook was preparing semolina for children. All the children who ate this porridge got poisoned and then died.

Afghan rat

This legend was born in the 80s, at the height of the Afghan war. One family bought a dachshund puppy that behaved strangely, ate too much and paid extra attention to the owner's child. After the “puppy” bit the child to death, and it turned out that this was not a dachshund, but an Afghan rat: they say that the Mujahideen specially sent these animals behind enemy lines to kill people.

"Food" legends

There were many food legends. Allegedly, toilet paper was added to the sausage, butter was made from oil, and vodka was driven from sawdust. It was as if washing powder was added to the beer to create more foam. They also said that rat paws and tails are sometimes found in sausage, pies and other products, and sometimes even human teeth and fingers!

Vampire mosquitoes at BAM

There was a legend that bloodless human corpses were found at the BAM construction sites. All these people became victims of a special breed of mosquitoes that drank all the blood from them.

People immured in the walls

There is an old belief that a building will stand firmly if a person is immured into the wall. And then there were rumors that during the construction of each house, someone was sure to be killed and walled up. Most often this is one of the workers or even a foreman.

Uranium mines instead of "tower"

In the USSR, there was still such a measure of punishment as the death penalty. But, according to rumors, those sentenced to the "tower" instead of death were sent to work in uranium mines. Most of them died there, but sometimes they met living people - very sick people, without teeth ...

Lost places

It was said that the bandits lost seats in cinemas at cards. The loser had to come to the session, sit behind the lost seat and kill the spectator who was sitting there with an awl in the heart. The same thing happened allegedly with seats in train cars.

Incredible Facts

Sometimes turning a tragic event into a legend helps people cope with grief, as well as protect the younger generation from realizing the reality of what is happening.

In this article, we have collected for you the creepiest urban legends based on real events.

City's legends

Faceless Charlie

Legend:

Children living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania love to tell the story of faceless Charlie, also known as the Green Man. Charlie is believed to have been a factory worker disfigured in a horrific accident, some claiming it was the acid, others the power line.

Some versions of the story claim that this incident caused his skin to turn green, but all versions have in common that Charlie's face was so disfigured that it lost all features. According to legend, he wanders in the dark through oppressive places, such as, for example, the old abandoned railway tunnel in South Park, also known as the Green Man Tunnel.

Over the years, curious teenagers have visited this tunnel looking for signs of Faceless Charlie. Many claimed that they felt a slight electric shock and had trouble starting the car after calling Faceless. Others said they saw a slight glow of his green skin in a tunnel or at night by a country road.

Reality:

Unfortunately, in this tragic story lies the lion's share of truth. The legend of Faceless Charlie appeared due to the fact that he had a very real prototype - Raymond Robinson. In 1919, Robinson, who was 8 years old at the time, was playing with a friend near a bridge with high voltage tram tracks.

Raymond suffered horrific injuries after he accidentally touched a power line. As a result of the impact, he lost his nose, both eyes and an arm, but survived. He spent the rest of his long life - 74 years - withdrawing into himself, and went out for a walk only at night, but he reciprocated the friendly appeals of people to him.

killer in the attic

Legend:

This chilling story appeared many years ago. It tells about a family unaware that a dangerous intruder has settled in their house, secretly living in their attic for weeks. They lose or move things, suspicious objects appear in the garbage. They joke sweetly about the brownie until a cruel killer living near them kills them in their sleep.

The worst thing about this legend is that, it would seem, it is quite possible - and it really is.

Reality:

This story began in March 1922 on a German farm called Hinterkaifeck. The owner, Andreas Gruber, began to notice that things were periodically disappearing in the house, lying in the wrong places. His family heard footsteps in the house at night, and Andreas himself, on the eve of the tragedy, noticed other people's footprints in the snow, but after examining the house and territory, he did not find anyone.

At the end of March, the man who left these traces came down from the attic and brutally dealt with six inhabitants of the farm - the owner, his wife, their daughter, her two children 2 and 7 years old and their maid with the help of a hoe. Their bodies were found only 4 days later, and it turned out that at that time someone was looking after the livestock. The identity of the offender has not yet been established.

legends

night doctors

Legend:

Stories of night doctors in the past were often heard from slave owners who used them to intimidate their slaves so they wouldn't run away. The essence of the legend is that there were some doctors who operated at night, kidnapping black workers to use them in their terrible experiments.

Night doctors caught people on the streets and took them to their medical facilities to torture, kill, dismember and cut out their organs.

Reality:

This creepy story has a very real continuation. Throughout the 19th century, grave robbery was a big problem, and the African American population could not protect either their deceased relatives or themselves. In addition, medical students did perform operations on living members of the African American community.

In 1932, the Alabama State Health Service and Tuskegee University launched a program to study syphilis. As terrible as it sounds, 600 African-American men were taken to perform the experiment. Of these, 399 already had syphilis and 201 did not.

They were given free food and a guarantee to protect their grave after death, but the program lost funding, but the participants were not told about their terrible illness. Researchers sought to study the mechanisms of the disease and continued to monitor patients. They were told that they were being treated for a non-serious blood disease.

The patients did not know they had syphilis or that they needed penicillin to treat it. The scientists refused to give any information about the drugs or the condition of their patients.

This story, spiced up with slave owners riding horses in white clothes at night, has long instilled fear and awe of the legend in black people.

Alice murders

Legend:

This is a fairly young urban legend from Japan. It says that in the period from 1999 to 2005 in Japan there was a series of brutal murders. The bodies of the victims were mutilated, their limbs were torn off, and a distinctive feature of all the murders was that next to each corpse, the name "Alice" was written in the blood of the victim.

The police also found one playing card at each of the creepy crime scenes. The first victim was found in the forest, and parts of her body were strung on the branches of various trees. The second victim had his vocal cords torn out. The third victim, a teenage girl, had her skin severely burned, her mouth cut open, her eyes torn out, and a crown sewn to her head. The last victims of the killer were two little twins - they were given lethal injections while they slept.

Police allegedly arrested a man in 2005 who was found wearing a jacket from one of the victims, but they were unable to link him to any of the murders. The man claimed that the jacket had been given to him.

Reality:

In fact, there have never been such murders in Japan. However, shortly before the appearance of this legend, a maniac was operating in Spain, who was called the Card Killer. In 2003, the entire police force in Madrid was sent to capture the man responsible for 6 brutal murders and 3 assassinations. Each time he left a playing card on the body of the murdered. The authorities were at a loss - there was no connection between the victims or an obvious motive.

All that was known was that they were dealing with a psychopath who chose his victims at random. He would never have been caught if one day he himself had not come to the police with a confession. The card killer turned out to be Alfredo Galan Sotillo. During the trial, Alfredo changed his testimony several times, retracting his confession and claiming that the Nazis forced him to confess to the murders. Despite this, the killer was sentenced to 142 years in prison.

scary urban legends

The Legend of Cropsy

Legend:

Among the people of Staten Island, the legend of Corpsi has been around for decades. It tells the story of a crazed axe-wielding killer who escaped from an old hospital and hides in the tunnels beneath the abandoned Willbrook Public School. He comes out of hiding at night and preys on children: some say that he has a hook for a hand, and some that he wields an ax. The weapon does not matter to him, the result is important to him - to lure the child into the ruins of the old school and cut him to pieces.

Reality:

As it turned out, the crazy killer was quite real. Andre Rand was directly responsible for the kidnapping of two children. He worked as a janitor at this very school until it closed. There, children with disabilities were kept in terrible conditions: they were beaten, insulted, they had neither normal food nor clothes. The homeless Rand returned to the tunnels under the school to continue the atrocities that had previously reigned in this school.

Children began to go missing, and the body of 12-year-old Jennifer Schweiger was found in the woods near Rand's camp. He was charged with her murder of Jennifer and another missing child. It has not been fully proven that these murders were his doing, but the police managed to prove that he was involved in the abductions of children. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison. The whereabouts of the other missing children have not yet been disclosed.

Babysitter and killer on the second floor

Legend:

The story of the babysitter and the killer hiding upstairs is undoubtedly an urban horror classic. According to this legend, a girl who works as a nanny for a wealthy family gets a creepy call. In almost all versions of the story, the caller asks the babysitter if she has checked on the children. The nanny calls the police, where it turns out that they are calling from the house where she is with the children. According to most versions, all three are found brutally murdered.

Reality:

The reason for the spread of this terrible story was the very real murder of 12-year-old girl Janet Christman, who looked after three-year-old Gregory Romak. In March 1950, when this brutal crime took place, there was a terrible thunderstorm in Columbia, Missouri. Janet had just put the child to bed when an unknown person entered the house and brutally raped and killed the girl.

The main suspects for a long time included a certain Robert Muller, who is also accused of another murder. Unfortunately, the evidence against Mueller was only circumstantial, but he was nevertheless accused of killing Janet. Some time later, he sued for wrongful detention, the charges were dropped, and he left town for good. After his departure, such crimes ceased.

Legends based on real events

rabbit man

Legend:

The story about the rabbit man appeared around the 70s of the last century and, like many urban legends, has several versions. The most common of these speaks of events that occurred in 1904, when the local psychiatric institution in Clifton, Virginia, closes and it becomes necessary to transfer patients to a new building. According to the classics of the genre, transport with patients gets into a serious accident, most of them die, and the survivors break free. They are all successfully brought back... except for one - Douglas Griffin, sent to a psychiatric hospital for killing his family on Easter Sunday.

Shortly after his escape, exhausted and mutilated carcasses of rabbits appear in the trees in the area. Some time later, the locals discover the body of Marcus Wallster hanging from the ceiling of an underpass under a railroad track in the same terrible state as the rabbits before it. The police tried to drive the madman into a corner, but he, while running away, was hit by a train. Now his restless ghost roams the area and still hangs the carcasses of rabbits on the trees.

Some even claim to have seen the rabbit-man in person, standing in the shadow of the underpass. The locals believe that whoever dares to enter the crossing on Halloween night will be found dead the next morning.

Reality:

Luckily, this creepy legend is just a legend, and there really was no crazy killer. There was no Douglas Griffin, no Marcus Wallster. However, in Fairfax County, there lived a man who was unhealthy obsessed with rabbits and terrorized the locals in the 70s of the last century.

He rushed at passers-by and pursued them with a small ax in his hands. Some claimed that he once threw a hatchet through the window of a passing car. One incident occurred in the house of one of the local residents. The madman took an ax with a long handle and began to chop down the porch of the unfortunate man's house. He escaped before the arrival of the police and no one still knows who he is and what motivated him.

Hook

Legend:

The legend of the Hook is perhaps the most common of all urban horror stories. It has several versions, each scarier than the previous one, and the most famous one is about a couple making love in a parked car. The radio is suddenly interrupted to tell the listeners the terrible news - a cruel killer has escaped, wielding a hook, and now he is hiding in the very park where the lovers are.

The girl, having heard the news, asks her beloved to leave from there as soon as possible. The guy is annoyed, but they are going, and he takes her home. When they arrive, they find a bloody hook hanging from the door handle on the passenger side.

Reality:

Whether the couple makes it home without incident, or the girl is horrified to hear her lover's fingers touch the roof of the car as his bloodied body hangs from a tree, the story didn't come about by accident. In the late 1940s, a small and peaceful town was rocked by a series of horrific murders. The culprit was dubbed the Moonlight Killer, but was never found.

At night, he killed young people in parked cars. Frightened residents were returning home long before the curfew announced by the authorities. The bloody crimes stopped as quickly as they started, and the Moon Slayer vanished into the night.

dog boy

Legend:

In the city of Quitman, Arkansas, the legend of the Dog Boy has long circulated. Locals claimed that it tells the story of an evil and very cruel little boy who loved to torture defenseless animals, and then completely switched to his parents. After the death of the boy, his ghost lived in the house where he killed his parents, in the form of a half-man, half-dog, instilling horror and fear in people. People often notice his outline in the room where he kept the animals he abused.

Witnesses describe him as a large furry creature resembling a dog with glowing cat eyes. Those who pass by his house notice that he is watching them closely from the window of the house, and some even claim that an incomprehensible creature on all fours was chasing them down the street.

Reality:

Once upon a time, an angry and cruel boy named Gerald Bettis lived in an old house at 65 Mulberry Street. His favorite pastime was catching neighbor's animals. He had a separate room where he brought the unfortunate. There he tortured them and brutally killed them. Over time, his cruelty began to manifest itself in relation to elderly parents. He was huge and overweight.

They say that it was he who killed his father, but no one has ever been able to prove that he provoked him to fall down the stairs. After his father's death, he continued to abuse his mother, keeping her locked up and starved to the sea. Law enforcement agencies intervened and they managed to save the unfortunate mother. Some time later, she testified against him for growing and using marijuana. He was sent to prison, where he died of an overdose.

Legends that turned out to be true

Black water

Legend:

This rather famous story begins with an ordinary family buying a new house. They are doing great until they turn on the faucet, which pours black, muddy, foul-smelling water. After checking the water tank, they discover a rotting body. It is not known when this legend was born, but a similar story really took place.

Reality:

Eliza Lam's body was found in a water tank at the Cecile Hotel in Los Angeles, California in 2013. Her death is still a mystery, and the killer has not been found. By the time the guests complained about the tainted water and her body was found, it had been decomposing in the tank for a week.

The creepiest legends

Bloody Mary

Legend:

According to an eerie folk belief about Bloody Mary, in order to invoke her evil spirit, one must light candles, turn off the lights, and whisper her name while gazing into a mirror. When she arrives, she can do a range of harmless things, as well as terrible things.

Reality:

According to psychologists, if you stare in the mirror for a long time, you can see how someone else is looking at you in response, so most likely the legend of Bloody Mary did not appear out of nowhere. The Italian psychologist Giovanni Caputo calls this phenomenon "the illusion of an alien face."

According to Caputo, if you stare long and hard at your reflection in a mirror, your field of vision will begin to distort, and the outlines and boundaries will become blurred - your face will no longer look the same. The same illusion manifests itself when a person sees images and silhouettes in inanimate objects.

Japan is a unique country with very specific culture and traditions. Ghosts and devilry have been believed here since time immemorial, so it's no surprise that the Japanese have a lot of frightening urban legends that will make even the bravest of us feel chills running down our spines. Below are the most interesting and creepy of these myths.

Answer Man

The Answer Man is an incorporeal spirit who knows the answers to all questions. To contact him, you need to get together with a company of ten people, get up at exactly midnight in a circle and call the mobile of the one who is on your left. Logically, all cell phones will be busy, but one of the participants may be lucky enough to get through to the Answer Man. The latter will ask you a tricky riddle. If you solve it, the spirit will answer any of your questions. Otherwise, he will take some part of the body from you in order to acquire his own flesh in the future.

Himuro Mansion

The members of the ancient Himuro family had a terrible custom. To protect themselves from evil spirits, they performed a sacrifice every fifty years. For this, one of the young girls in the family agreed to be tied up, and the ends of the ropes were tied to three oxen, which accelerated and tore the body of the unfortunate woman to pieces. Once there were no volunteers, and the family forcibly killed a relative in this way. She cursed the whole family before her death, and within fifty years the once numerous family completely degenerated. It is said that the ghosts of the former owners still live in the mansion, which has become a museum.

Hell Tomino

"Hell of Tomino" is a cursed poem written in 1919 by the Japanese poet Yomota Inuhiko. A work that tells about a girl named Tomino, who died and ended up in the underworld, cannot be read aloud, otherwise something unpleasant may happen to you, up to death.

Inunaki village

Inunaki Village is a legendary settlement that supposedly exists somewhere in the mountains of Japan. No laws apply here and cannibalism, incest, sacrifice and black magic flourish. If you had the misfortune to set foot on the territory of the village, you will never return from here. Either you will be killed, or you will have to become a full-fledged member of this terrible community and lose your soul as a result of such a life.

The girl from the gap

If you ever find yourself in Japan and stay in one of the local hotels, try not to look at the cracks in the walls and between the furniture. According to another myth, a woman's face may suddenly appear there. The stranger will inform you that if you see her one more time, she will take you straight to hell. After that, the ghost will try with all its might to get into your eyes in order to fulfill its promise and take possession of your soul.

Kuchisake-onna

The habit of the Japanese to wear gauze bandages in winter also played a role in the modern folklore of the Land of the Rising Sun. Kuchisake-onna is a woman who can be found in Japanese cities during outbreaks of influenza and other diseases. She always wears a bandage on her face. If you meet Kuchisake-onna on an empty street, she will come up to you and bare her face. The woman's mouth will be cut to the ears. She will ask you: "Do you think I'm beautiful?" If you answer in the negative, the spirit will get angry and tear you to pieces. If you say "Yes", the woman will take out large scissors and cut your cheeks in the same way to make you beautiful too.

Teke-teke

Teke-teke is an even more terrifying spirit from modern urban legend. Once it was a beautiful girl who decided to commit suicide and jumped under the subway rails. The Japanese woman was cut in half, and since then the upper part of her body has been moving along the streets of the country, making characteristic clattering sounds. The ghost is able to move very quickly, and if you meet him face to face, he will certainly begin to chase you. In the event that he manages to catch up with a person, his death will be so terrible that this moment is not even specified in the legend.

Okiku doll

Once upon a time, a doll with that name belonged to a little Japanese girl. Her parents were so cruel that they let their daughter die from the cold. The child's soul moved into a favorite toy, and since then the doll began to grow human hair. It is noteworthy that in the Japanese temple of Mannenji there really is a doll with that name and, according to the priests, the toy actually grows hair that has to be cut periodically.

Kiyotaki Tunnel

The number four is considered unkind by the Japanese. In the Land of the Rising Sun, they are so afraid of him that all the buildings here are built without a fourth floor, that is, after the third, the fifth immediately follows. When a tunnel with a length of four hundred and forty-four meters was built in the north of Japan, terrible events immediately began to occur in it. Ghosts periodically appear on the road, which lead to numerous accidents. It is believed that drivers who died in the tunnel join the spirits that provoke more and more car accidents. According to official statistics, accidents really happen here much more often than in other Japanese tunnels.

Hitobashira

In Russian, the Japanese word "hitobashira" is translated as "living pillars." In ancient Japan, it was believed that a person, embedded alive in one of the pillars of a building, would drive away evil spirits from the building and allow it to stand for many centuries. Such a barbaric custom was indeed practiced here in the Middle Ages - for example, a blind peasant woman was walled up alive at the base of the Maruoka castle, shown in the photo above. In Japan, there are a large number of buildings over four hundred years old, and it is believed that among them there is not one where the remains of another unfortunate person would not rest in concrete.

As we have said before, reality is much worse than fiction. Therefore, we unearthed a few more horror stories for you, which we would definitely tell you at night by the fire if you suddenly decided to leave your cozy hole. All of the stories below are true.

1. Photos of the dead

Legend:
So, a grocery store boy brings groceries home to an eccentric old woman and suddenly notices an old photograph on one of the shelves, from which his hair suddenly stands on end wherever possible. The picture shows a little boy in his best party suit; the photo seems quite normal, but at the same time there is something frightening about it. The messenger asks the old lady about the picture, and the old lady answers innocently, stuffing the cat into the washing machine: “Oh, really handsome? Like it's alive."

Story:
Today, most people are too pampered and prefer not to look into the coffins of the dead, but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, someone's death usually meant that it was time for a family photo. Back then it was called memorial photography.

And although this practice looks like someone's evil prank, there is a practical explanation for this. The fact is that the filming process was then so expensive that family photos could only be taken once in a lifetime. At the same time, people had to sit still for a couple of minutes in order for everything to work out perfectly. And what the dead are good at is sitting still.

Therefore, the bodies of the dead were dressed up and seated in front of the camera with their eyes open. And in case they suddenly didn’t look like living people enough, a little color was added to the picture later. And just look what people could do in those days with the help of the simplest special effects!

Over time, the practice of memorial photography has become obsolete. Perhaps because taking pictures has become much easier and more accessible. Or someone just wondered about the sanity of what is happening.

2. A corpse wrapped in a carpet

Legend:
According to legend, someone found a beautiful old carpet on the street, brought it home and found a dead man wrapped inside. At the same time, there are different variations, and the corpse is sometimes found in a discarded refrigerator or an old wardrobe, but the essence in all stories is the same: it’s not good to drag all sorts of rubbish from the street.

Story:
In 1984, three students from Columbia University found a rolled carpet on the sidewalk and decided to take it to their dorm.

Having dragged the find to the house, they unrolled the carpet and found inside the rotting corpse of an unknown man with two bullet holes in the skull. Three students from a prestigious university carried a carpet for several meters and during all this time they never paid attention to a 90-kilogram decomposing corpse!

3. Poison woman

Legend:
A sick woman is taken to the hospital, and when the nurses take a blood sample from her, it turns out to be so poisonous that everyone near her falls ill. Realizing that they were dealing with a monster from Alien in human form, the nurses ran away in fear.

Story:
On the evening of February 19, 1994, Gloria Ramirez, suffering from an extremely severe form of cancer, was admitted to the California emergency room.

When the nurse bled her, she caught an unpleasant smell that was so disgusting that the staff began to feel sick, and some who were next to the patient even lost consciousness. Ultimately, 23 people were infected then. The emergency department was evacuated, after which a group of disinfectors entered the business.

This case was described as mass hysteria, but given that one of the victims spent two weeks in the intensive care unit with hepatitis, pancreatitis and necrosis (necrosis, death of cells and tissues in a living organism under the influence of pathogenic factors), we can say that either it was a damn serious hysteria, or the person who made this diagnosis got his degree from the University of Idiots.

As for Gloria, she died 40 minutes after being admitted to the hospital. Her autopsy was performed by people in protective suits, but despite one of the most thorough investigations conducted in history, the reason for the all-time high levels of toxins in the blood of this woman remained unknown.

4 Headless Lover

Legend:
A pregnant woman admits to her husband that the child she is carrying is not his. The husband, as a rational and prudent person, cuts off his lover's head and brings it to his wife in the hospital wing. The story has many versions, but the essence of them all boils down to one thing: stay away from appetizing boys, married ladies.

Story:
In 1993, Sgt. Stephen Schap and Diane Schap, who were living in Germany, discovered that their family would soon be replenished, which would certainly have been great news if Stephen had not performed a vasectomy a year earlier. Oops. In the studio of the American talk show Jerry Springer (something like the Russian "Windows" with Nagiyev), Diana was forced to admit that she had an affair with her husband's best friend Gregory Glover (Gregory Glover) and, unfortunately, Steven's reaction to this the message was not limited to throwing furniture around the room.

On a cold December day, a pregnant Diana was lying in a hospital bed talking on the phone with Gregory when suddenly the phone line went dead. The woman did not have to wait long to find out what had happened, because half an hour later her husband burst into the ward and pulled the freshly severed head of his former friend from a sports bag.

“Look, Diana, Glover is here! Now he will sleep with you every night. But you won’t be able to sleep, because you will see it” - with these words, Stephen plopped his bloody head on the bedside table facing his wife. You can say what you want about Sergeant Shap's mental state, but this guy definitely has a penchant for the dramatic.

5. Failed Escapist Escape

Legend:
The escapist fails the deadly trick and dies in front of the audience. Often such rumors are spread by the magicians themselves to add an element of risk to their act.

Story:
Despite the illusion of danger, escapists rarely die or even get injured while performing this stunt. Most sane people take all possible safety precautions when they are about to dive bound into a tank of water. But Joseph Barrus was not one of them.

Ironically, Barrus had to climb out of his own grave. He was chained and placed in a transparent plastic box, which was lowered into the grave to a depth of 2 meters. From above, the box was covered with a half-meter layer of earth, and the empty openings were filled with wet concrete. Everything seemed to be going great, but it turned out that the plastic box cracked and crushed the escapist.

6Saw-Style Murder

Legend:
All these intricate puzzles and carefully planned traps, organized by the killer nicknamed Jigsaw, are nothing more than fiction and are unlikely to have taken place in reality.

But suddenly someone appears on the Internet who claims that he heard a real story about how a guy with a booby-trapped collar broke into a bank, which, according to him, was supposed to blow his head if he did not rob the bank on behalf of a criminal genius ...

Truth:
On a fine August day in 2003 that was no different than any other, pizza delivery boy Brian Wells was just about to finish his shift when he received an unfortunate call. Following directions, Brian drove down a dirt, winding road and reached an abandoned TV tower. Most people in this young man's place would have simply thrown the pizza into the ditch and driven away. But not Brian Wells. This fellow gave himself without a trace to his low-paid work.

No one really knows exactly what happened there, but it is known that about an hour later a young man showed up at the aforementioned bank with a sophisticated collar, holding a homemade gun that looked more like a cane, and a note demanding a quarter of a million dollars in cash.

Unfortunately, Brian was just as good at robbing banks as he was at avoiding obvious horror movie traps, so he was quickly pulled over in the parking lot. The police noticed the collar, but mistook it for a fashion accessory and did not consider it necessary to call the sappers. When they did call them and they arrived at the place, the “fashion accessory” had already exploded, and Wells had a hole the size of a postcard in his chest.

After searching Wells, the police found a sheet with a list of tasks, each of which had to be completed in a certain time so that the bomb did not explode. But in any case, poor Brian was doomed from the very beginning, as it later turned out that it was simply impossible to complete these tasks, even if you strictly followed the instructions. He just didn't have enough time.

Presumably, all the organizers of this lawlessness were caught and convicted. But still, there is a possibility that somewhere along the streets another pervert with a sick imagination, who did not have time to bring to justice, is snooping around.

7. Call from the other world

Legend:
This story looks like an old tale, adapted to modern realities, that is told by the fire: someone receives calls on the phone from a friend or relative, who, as it turns out later, has been dead all this time.

Truth:
On September 12, 2008, a California suburban train ran through a red traffic light and crashed into a freight train. 25 people then died.

The family of Charles Peck, who was on the same train, were watching the news, dreading the news of their relative's fate...when the phone rang. And then again and again.

The calls came from Charles' cell phone to each member of the family in turn. A total of 35 were made.
The police managed to find Charles's body among the wreckage by tracing the signal of his mobile phone, but this reunion cannot be called happy. Charles was dead, and who and how called from his phone remains a mystery to this day.

Now guess what distracted the driver from the road and because of what he drove through a red light.

Yes, it was mobile.

8 Elevator Killer

Legend:
The metal doors close, trapping the defenseless victim, who can do little more than scream in terror as the elevator car rises, and eventually sever their head and limbs. This scene can be seen in a number of cheap horror movies, including one whose story revolves entirely around an elevator.

But in real life, there are safety precautions, and such things cannot happen.

Truth:
There are safety precautions, of course, but they did not help Dr. Hitoshi Nikaidoh August 16, 2003. To this day, no one knows exactly why the elevator doors didn't open again when the doctor got stuck between them. The inspectors suggested that the tragedy occurred due to one cable that had come loose.

How much damage can one such cable cause? Well…

As the doors clamped down on Dr. Nikaido like a vise, the elevator began to rise until it cut the man's head at the level of the mouth, leaving only the left ear and lower jaw attached to the torso. Pretty creepy picture, don't you think? And now imagine what it was like for a nurse who spent about an hour sitting in a blood-drenched cabin with the cut off head of a good doctor.

9 Chainsaw Suicide

Legend:
This story has existed for several decades, and during this time it has managed to acquire many different details. Some say that the guy cut off his head on a bet, others that it was an accident, and still others claim that it was suicide.

But to be honest, is it physically possible?

Truth:
It looks like yes.

50-year-old Briton David Phyall (David Phyall) very much did not want to leave the apartment building, which was supposed to be demolished. The man was offered eleven alternative housing options, but he flatly refused to accept even one. One by one, the neighbors moved, leaving him alone in the old house.

Something had to be sacrificed, and that something, as it turned out, was David's spine. The plan he came up with no doubt put the man at risk of death and, on top of everything else, overburdened the cleaning lady with work. Tying a chainsaw to the table leg, David lay down on the floor, arranging himself so that his neck was against the chain. Then he set a timer for 15 minutes and filled himself with alcohol.

David's plan went as smoothly as his head left his torso.

The police chief asked the sergeant who discovered David's body if what he saw was a shock to him. "In a sense, yes, sir," the sergeant replied, and immediately got a reprimand for showing emotions and lacking composure while on duty.

10 Shriveled Heads

Legend:
For many years, cowering human heads have been the subject of all sorts of legends and anecdotes, but all this is fiction and nothing like this has ever actually happened.

Truth:
In fact, this is not a myth, and the practice of creating such shriveled human heads was common mainly in the tribes living in the Amazon River region.

To make one such head, an incision was made at the back of a normal-sized human head, after which the skin and flesh were carefully removed from the skull. The eyelids and mouth were sewn together, the meat was thoroughly boiled, then boiled out on hot stones, after which they molded a head out of it. But although the creation of such heads actually took place, this was done extremely rarely even in those tribes where this practice was common. Everything changed at the end of the 19th century, when the collection of such unusual and creepy accessories became very popular. Things got to the point that numerous South American and Polynesian tribes (most of which never did this at all) fought with each other, just to get the heads.

In exchange for shrunken heads, the whites gave the natives weapons and thus, one might say, guaranteed themselves a constant supply of new goods.

In the United States, trade in these oddities continued for many years, until the 1940s, when they were officially outlawed.

11. Corpse Farm

Legend:
There are stories of isolated patches of land where unburied corpses decompose in the midday sun. What's the matter? The killer got away? Or have the gravediggers gone on strike again?

Truth:
Corpse farms are real and completely legal in the United States.

The TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation doesn't talk about this, but body farms are actually increasingly important to forensic scientists, as they allow scientists to study how the human body decomposes under different conditions.

Three such unusual farms are located near Knoxville, Tennessee, San Marcos, Texas, and Callow, North Carolina.

The one in Knoxville is the oldest and most improved; it occupies 2.5 acres of land, and there are 40 to 50 bodies on it at a time.

In the English-language video below, you can see how a man shows his collection of corpses and talks about gloves made of human skin.

12. Live severed head

Legend:
The head continues to function for some time after it has been separated from the body. According to legend, severed heads blinked, reacted to stimuli, and even tried to speak.

Story:
Death by decapitation has always been considered quick and painless (the guillotine was invented as a method of humane execution), but there is plenty of evidence that the human brain continues to work for several seconds, or even a minute, after it has been separated from the body.

One of the earliest and most famous evidence of this is the experiment of Dr. Boryo. After the execution of the French murderer Languile, his eyes and mouth moved for another 5-6 seconds before calming down. But when Boryo called out his name, the criminal's eyes immediately opened.

“Langil's eyes were definitely looking at me,” Boryo said. “The look was focused.” After that, the good doctor continued to receive similar results for another 30 seconds.

There are a lot of stories related to the guillotine, but what about the modern era? We can assure you that such cases still occur today. One of these was told to us by a participant in a terrible car accident in which one of his friends, who were in the car, lost his head.

“My friend’s head was upside down. I have seen his mouth open and close at least twice. The face expressed shock and bewilderment, which was replaced by horror and bitterness.<…>He looked from me to his body and back to me."

***
A spooky story, so we'll end this article on a lighter note.

In Africa, in some tribes, before cutting off a person’s head, they first tied it to an elastic branch of a tree, so that after execution it was catapulted into the sky. Thus, for the last seconds before oblivion, the severed head floated serenely across the sky. If you had to die, then this method would probably be in the top five.

People have been making up legends and legends ever since they discovered communication. Despite some true facts, most of the terrible legends still remain fiction. However, chilling urban legends can often turn out to be true. Sometimes turning a tragic event into a legend helps people cope with grief, as well as protect the younger generation from realizing the reality of what is happening.

In this article, we have collected for you the creepiest urban legends based on real events.

Faceless Charlie

Legend:

Children living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania love to tell the story of faceless Charlie, also known as the Green Man. It is believed that Charlie was a factory worker disfigured in a horrific accident: some claim it was the acid, others the power line.

Reality:

Raymond suffered horrific injuries after he accidentally touched a power line. As a result of the impact, he lost his nose, both eyes and an arm, but survived. He spent the rest of his long life - 74 years - closed in on himself, and went out for a walk only at night, but he reciprocated the friendly appeals of people to him.

killer in the attic

Legend:

The worst thing about this legend is that, it would seem, it is quite possible - and it really is.

Reality:

At the end of March, the person who left these traces descended from the attic and brutally dealt with six inhabitants of the farm - the owner, his wife, their daughter, her two children 2 and 7 years old and their maid with the help of a hoe. Their bodies were found only 4 days later, and it turned out that at that time someone was looking after the livestock. The identity of the offender has not yet been established.

night doctors

Legend:

Night doctors caught people on the streets and took them to their medical facilities to torture, kill, dismember and cut out their organs.

Reality:

The patients did not know they had syphilis or that they needed penicillin to treat it. The scientists refused to give any information about the drugs or the condition of their patients.

This story, spiced up with slave owners riding horses in white clothes at night, has long instilled fear and awe of the legend in black people.

Alice murders

Legend:

Reality:

The Legend of Cropsy

Legend:

Among the people of Staten Island, the legend of Corpsi has been around for decades. It tells the story of a crazed axe-wielding killer who escaped from an old hospital and hides in the tunnels beneath the abandoned Willbrook Public School. He comes out of hiding at night and preys on children: some say he has a hook for a hand, and some say he wields an axe. The weapon does not matter to him, the result is important to him - to lure the child into the ruins of the old school and cut him to pieces.

Reality:

Babysitter and killer on the second floor

Legend:

Reality:

rabbit man

Legend:

Reality:

Hook

Legend:

The legend of the Hook is perhaps the most common of all urban horror stories. It has several versions, each scarier than the previous one, and the most famous one is about a couple making love in a parked car. The radio broadcast is suddenly interrupted to tell the listeners terrible news - a cruel killer wielding a hook has escaped, and now he is hiding in the very park where the lovers are.

Reality:

Whether the couple makes it home without incident, or the girl is horrified to hear her lover's fingers touch the roof of the car as his bloody body hangs from a tree, the story didn't come about by chance. In the late 1940s, a small and peaceful town was rocked by a series of horrific murders. The culprit was dubbed the Moonlight Killer, but was never found.

dog boy