13 Urban Legends That Are Actually True
Peeking under the bed for a quick ‘demon check’ is a core memory for many of us. I have done it longer than I care to admit. Another classic—the vanishing hitchhiker— crosses your mind on a solitary midnight walk making your blood run cold. Sure, the pragmatist in you shrugs them off as irrational and myths. But in the back of your mind, a little voice whispers, “What if it’s not?” Now will it completely throw you off if we tell you there are urban legends that are true to some extent?
Folklores often spring from insignificant incidents. Someone spots a shadow in the woods and whips up a fancy ghost story. Over the years, people amplify the plot, layering it with new (yet baseless) details until it’s shaped into a full-fledged eerie narrative. After gliding through generations and thousands of retellings, when it reaches you, the story couldn’t be further from reality. Today we will examine 13 famous urban legends that are said to have some shreds of truth to back their legacy.
1. Contaminated Halloween Candy
The sheer joy of trick-or-treating and wearing spooky costumes has always been tainted by an unsettling rumor. It became a major concern among American parents that their psycho neighbor might slip in drugs, poison, or razor-infused candies to harm their children.
In the 1960s, a bitter woman in Long Island was displeased to see slightly older trick-or-treaters. She handed them out steel wool and dog biscuits although they were in original packaging and nobody got affected.
The prevalent candy horror was further validated by a New York Times article in 1970 which brought a new wave of fear. Right after its publication, a little boy died in Texas from poisoned candy. As it turned out after investigation, his own father was the culprit and it was no Halloween mishap.
Some other scattered incidents remotely related to tampered candies kept the buzz alive for over fifty years. A comprehensive study run by Sociologist Joel Best concludes that almost none of these crimes had the intention of hurting children. He labeled it as one of the common urban legends for kids.
2. The Hermit Of Maine
Would you ever take a hermit for a thief? We guess not. That’s what makes the story of the Maine hermit so intriguing. For three decades, the locals and the tourists of the North Pond area lived with a mysterious intruder robbing their households.
Are you thinking what I am thinking? Why would they put up with such a large-scale felony for so long? It’s because the most valuable item they ever lost was a flashlight!
The looter had his eye for only trivial things like a box of cheese, a good vest, maybe a few batteries, or a propane tank. As baffled as the residents were looking at the uniqueness of his hauls, they didn’t know who to charge for these petty thefts. Soon enough the fictional tale of a hermit living in the woods spread through word of mouth.
In 2013, the real man behind the faceless monk came to light. The police arrested a middle-aged pale man named Christopher Knight who fessed up to 1000 burglaries committed over a span of 27 years. He chose to be a recluse in his youth and never again came in touch with other people. In his statement, he opened up that the break-ins were a means of survival and he never meant any harm to anyone.
3. Killer In The Backseat
The story begins with a woman driving late at night on a pitch-black highway. Suddenly she spotted another car behind her which was fine until that crazy driver kept flashing the headlights and blaring the horns. The situation tensed up when, in a frenzy, she accelerated and the stalker, too, picked up the pace.
The original narrative got distorted into multiple variants. In one version, the follower tails her to her house. He jumps out of the car and drags out a short man crouching in the backseat. All the honking and beaming was supposed to be a signal for her safety.
Another ending goes like this: the lady pulls up in a gas station. The assistant there very cleverly asks her inside to settle the bill and warns her of a strange man’s presence in her car.
This popular legend is a reflection of America’s highway crime scene during the 60s and 70s. A similar incident was reported in 1964 in New York and the officer shot an escaped convict hiding in the backseat of his police vehicle.
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4. Charlie No-face
Let’s hear this classic urban legend and then you will tell us whether it’s just a myth or a fact. Deal? The backdrop is 1950s Pennsylvania. People from Beaver County and Pittsburgh were completely creeped out by the sight of the scary no-faced man haunting the Piney Fork railroad tunnel. Speculations and whispers around the town round up the story of Charlie No-Face or the Green Man.
Apparently, a high-voltage electrical injury melted his crucial facial features and disfigured his face and arm. To make it worse, the shock turned him into a radioactive creature with glowy neon-green skin. No wonder he was the very embodiment of terror.
So what’s your verdict? It’s a myth, right? Well, we are sorry to give you the chills my friend but Charlie No-Face was a real person named Raymond Robinson. The fatal childhood injury sent him to isolation for life. The radioactive bit was clearly fictitious. People caught him several times during his nightly strolls along Route 351 and the panic spread like wildfire.
5. Bloody Mary
Even though it has now come down to a slumber party game, the legend of Bloody Mary carries one of the scariest backstories. Bloody Mary is often associated with Mary I, the ruthless Tudor queen of England. She earned this notorious honor after sentencing 300 protestants to death.
It was an old tradition among young women to walk up a staircase in backward steps holding a mirror in one hand and a candle in the other. The lucky ones were supposed to see a glimpse of the face of their future husband. It was a severely bad omen if the skull of the Grim Reaper popped up instead. Those poor women were cursed to death before getting married.
With time, the ritual was molded into a planchette-like practice. The setting of course involves a poorly lit room and a mirror. Some brave hearts would chant the name of Bloody Mary three times and wait for the phantom to appear. Now, whether she would come bearing a glass of cocktail or reap your eyes off, that’s a separate discussion.
It’s safe to say the legend of Bloody Mary lives in people’s faith. Science will brush off real-life experiences as nothing but hallucinations.
6. The Babysitter And The Man Upstairs
It’s highly unsettling to sit through some accounts of urban legends that are true. “The call is coming from inside the house”—no babysitter would ever want to hear these 8 spine-tingling words in their worst nightmare. The folklore features a schoolgirl who was babysitting two little children one afternoon. In short intervals of time, she received three phone calls, each one getting creepier than the previous.
A stone-cold voice kept asking her, “Have you checked on the children?” She took the first two as some kind of prank from her friends but the third one really set her off. Too frightened to go upstairs, she dialed the operator. The moment the call was traced, they warned her, “Ma’am, the call is coming from inside the house. Get out of there right now.”
And to think this spine-tingling legend is based on true stories! The origin of the ‘babysitter and the upstairs man’ can be traced back to an unresolved murder mystery from Columbia. In 1950, a 13-year-old girl Janett Christman was physically assaulted and strangled to death while she was babysitting. The horror!
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7. Sewer Alligator
As long as we are unfolding myths that are real, let’s take a moment to reflect on the cruel fate of these reptiles. Alligators thrive in warm states like Florida and Louisiana, so it’s unusual for these creatures to live or survive in the bitter New York cold. An urban mythology of alligators living in New York sewers against all odds seems to defy the laws of nature.
However, this legend is not fabricated out of mere imagination. Ever since the early 20th century, New York’s elites brought baby alligators home from their trips to Florida. What started as a whimsical status symbol soon transformed into a burden. It was fine to own an exotic pet until the gators started showing their true stature. Many of these animals were flushed down the toilet and ended up in the city’s filthy sewers.
8. Cropsey, The Boogeyman
Child snatcher Boogeyman has existed in different forms and shapes around the world since the 15th century. The creepy childhood urban legend of Cropsey is the 1970s edition of Boogeymen whose presence terrorized Staten Island for decades. Cropsey took out the grief and frustration of losing his own child on every kid in the area.
It’s an easy guess that he had a background of serving time in a mental hospital. Like other psycho killers, Cropsey too was attributed to heinous physical features like burning scars on his body and a hook hand as a murder weapon. Up until here, we could still pass it as a made-up story but it got way too real in the next few years.
Enter Andre Rand, janitor of Willowbrook State School, Staten Island. This man single-handedly brought the legend of Cropsey to life with a series of crimes including kidnapping and first-degree murder. In 1983, he hijacked 11 children in a school bus, one of his finest criminal works.
The mysterious disappearance of Jennifer Schweiger and many other kids pointed straight at Rand. If it makes you feel any better, no one can bail him out of the bars before 2037.
9. Body Under The Hotel Bed
Are urban legends true? Well, at least this one is. A newlywed couple’s honeymoon got spoiled by a pungent smell in their hotel room. After their repeated complaints the hotel authority did everything they could from changing the linens to spraying the room freshener. But, the smell lingered.
Outraged by the mismanagement of the hotel, this man started stripping down the whole suite. In some versions, the staff investigates the rooms after the couple’s departure. Either way, the end result is the same and utterly disturbing. A rotting body was tucked under the bed covered by wooden panels.
Now it’s time to face the horror. A quick scroll through the internet and you will be stunned by the many many news reports popping up about corpses stashed under hotel beds, a recipe of haunted hotels if you ask me. Folklorist Jan Harold pins the first mention of this legend to Las Vegas in 1991. The infamous Capri Motel of Kansas City carried evidence of a similar case in 2003. More recently, the body of a missing woman, Sony Millbrook was rescued from another motel in Memphis. And the list goes on!
10. The Boyfriend’s Death
Have you ever chanced upon the spooky urban legend about a couple in a car? After all, it’s been circulating widely since 1964. If not, this read is going to haunt you forever. It’s about two young lovers who stopped their car at a secluded spot in the woods to buy some privacy. Things went south when the car wouldn’t start after their amorous activities.
The boy went out for gas and took a surprisingly long time to return. Meanwhile, the girl couldn’t sit at peace as a scratchy and squeaky sound coming from the roof of the car kept bothering her. It took a toll on her patience and she stepped out only to discover the swinging body of her dead boyfriend hung upside down from a tree. His drooping head and fingers were making the noise against the car roof.
In a variant of this legend, a police vehicle arrived at the scene and the sergeant asked her to walk toward his van without turning her head, which she did anyway. The sight was unbearable for human eyes. She saw a madman standing with an axe on the top of the car. On the other hand, he held the slit head of her guy.
Research tries to bridge the gap between imagination and reality behind this classic Lovers’ Lane murder story. The madman was identified as Frank Mitchell, an escaped prisoner who remains a prime suspect in this ghastly crime.
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11. Murderer Coming Through Medicine Cabinet
Staring at the bathroom cabinet mirror will never be the same after watching the 1992 horror movie Candyman. The plot involves an old legend of a black man who was brutally murdered in the 19th century for falling in love with a white lady. Anyone who dared to summon his name five times in front of a mirror may have fallen prey to Candyman’s wrath.
What you didn’t know is that there are real facts to confirm Candyman’s legend. Let’s rewind to 1987, Ruthie McCoy’s murder case. She lived in the same housing project in Chicago as the protagonist of the movie. “They are coming through the medicine cabinet,” the frantic woman reported to 911. No, she wasn’t hallucinating.
These buildings used to have a very thin barrier between the bathroom cabinets of two adjoining apartments due to plumbing issues. It was plausible for the killers or anyone to leverage this architectural flaw and break in. The poor woman was found dead in her home two days later.
12. Real Corpse Decoration
Ghost stories are fun as long as shared around a campfire with booze and barbecue. How would it make you feel to know that a real corpse has traveled across the country for over 65 years? This is the story of the fugitive Elmer McCurdy who reportedly died from a police gunshot in 1911.
The people in the funeral home mummified his abandoned body and designed a clever money-making scheme. People were thrilled to see the ‘live’ dead body of a notorious criminal and threw coins for the exhibit. McCurdy’s corpse made stops at many carnivals before slowly the legend faded into history.
The real twist in the story occurs in 1976 when a TV show crew visited an amusement park in Long Beach. During a spooky tunnel ride, a scary dummy showed up as a part of the show. With a slight touch, its arm came off. This is the moment when I got goosebumps. That was a real human hand, McCurdy’s hand to be more specific. The police identified the body and did the needful for his proper burial.
13. The Licked Hand
Let’s conclude this unnerving list of legends with yet another grisly murder. But here, the victim is not a human. Intrigued? The most popular version of this tale centers on an independent girl living alone with her beloved dog. One night she heard a persistent dripping sound in her sleep.
She attempted several times to get up and inspect the source of this annoying sound. But every time her loyal companion licked her hand and comforted her back to sleep. The next morning greeted her with a ghastly image. She found her dog dangling from the showerhead. Blood dripping from his slit throat flooded the tub. Before she could process the initial blow, another horror presented itself—a line written on the wall dipped in dog’s blood, “Humans can lick too!”
The story is loosely based on the common crime cases of break-ins on private property.
A similar incident was recorded way back in 1871 which involved burglary instead of murder.
There is a separate audience for the urban legends that are true. If you think about it, what makes these eerie narratives stay on for generations? One study published in the British Journal of Psychology suggests that people are more prone to remembering and retelling urban legends containing survival hazards and social accounts. There must be countless other haunting tales existing around the world. Let’s have a chat—tell us about the legends you heard from your grandfather.
