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Throughout history, humans have created myths and legends to make sense of the world around them. Most of the time, that’s exactly what they remain—myths and legends, fascinating but ultimately untrue, or only partly so.
But not always.
So when one Redditor asked people to share which myths and legends turned out to be real, people came through with some pretty interesting answers. We’ve rounded up some of the best below—scroll down for a chance to learn something new.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Well not quite a perfect fit, but the one that always sticks in my mind was that the Mongolians would always boil their water before drinking to "get rid of the tiny evil spirits'.
That's a pretty good description of germs and bacteria for the time period.
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#2
The discovery of viking/norse colony at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada that was settled between 990-1050.
Rumors of Norse landings in North America were dubious, often alluded to in the Iceandic or Greenlander Sagas as the colony of Vinland. In 1961, a colony was located, excavated and dated to over 400 years prior to Columbus.
That’s all what I yam 11 hours ago (edited)
And yet Columbus Day is still an US federal holiday.
#3
One of my favorites is Lake Nyos in the Republic of Cameroon.
The local legend was that an evil spirit or a monster lived in the lake and would come out at night to takes lives of anyone who lived too close to the lake. One of the local groups, the Bafmen, settled in the high ground near the lake due to the legends. Different groups moved into the area in the mid 1900's and lived closer to the water's edge, disregarding the customs of the Bafmen.
In 1986, nearly 1,500 people living near the lake were found deceased. Those who lived in the higher ground were fine.
It turns out the lake was very deep, and would essentially become carbonated. A land slide could trigger a release of CO2 from the lake waters. On that night in 1986, an enormous release occurred and since CO2 is heavier than air, anyone in the lower areas simply suffocated and didn't wake up.
So while the myth about the evil spirits wasn't entirey true, there really was something in the lake to fear!
#4
It was widely regarded to be a myth that the first emperor of a united China, Qin Shi Huang, built a massive replica of his empire as his mausoleum. The stories said he had thousands of statues of soldiers constructed to guard his empire in the afterlife and had an underground palace with rivers of mercury. In 1974, more than 8,000 terracotta warriors were uncovered in Xi'an China.
#5
I believe there exists an oral history of a tremendous wave striking the Pacific Northwest among various coastal tribes. It was broadly viewed as being nonsense before they uncovered evidence of a colossal thrust earthquake and tsunami from around 1700.
#6
There was a tale of a massive eagle that stole babies in Maori legend. Pakeha (European settlers) didn't believe it until at least after 1871 when a dude found the 400+ year old remains of an eagle in a swamp. They were 20-33 lb/9-15kg and had a 8.5-10 foot/2.4-3m wingspan.
It would hunt its prey by diving at ~50mph/80kph toward the neck or head and the "striking force [was] equivalent to a cinder block falling from the top of an eight-story building."
It hunted Moa, which were 12 feet/3.7m tall.
It definitely could have stolen a baby.
#7
Machu Picchu
" So you're telling me there are a bunch of people with a ton of gold living on the top of a mountain higher than any in Europe using advanced farming techniques and building magnificent temples? Nonsense"
Turns out, yes Mr. Conquistador, there was.
#8
It wasn't clear whether King Richard III was really deformed, or if people who wrote about him after he passed were just making it up. Some people thought he must have been physically normal, but writers added the deformity to make him seem more hateable. When his remains were found, there was evidence of severe scoliosis that would have made one shoulder higher than the other. Not a hunchback, but at least a bit lopsided.
#9
A dingo ate her baby.
That’s all what I yam 11 hours ago (edited)
Looked it up. On August 17, 1980, while camping at Ayers Rock (now Uluru), Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a tent. Lindy Chamberlain, the mom, was heard yelling "the dingo's got my baby". The parents were brought to trial, the prosecution claiming the story was far-fetched. Lindy was convicted of m****r in 1982 and sentenced to life, while her husband Michael was convicted as an accessory. In 1986, a jacket found in 1986, near a dingo lair, prompted her release and a royal commission to overturn the convictions in 1987-1988. A 2012 inquest confirmed that dingoes were responsible for the death, concluding a 32-year legal battle. There is a Wikipedia article, “Dingo ate my baby” that has references to the trial.
#10
Saraswati river in India was considered a myth, a stuff of mythological texts and such.
No one could actually confirm its existence, but there was a millenia long speculation about why did the river feature so much in late bronze age (Vedic) Indian literature if it was not real, alongside actual and real major rivers. It was even deified as a goddess, a prospect reserved for major rivers.
Yet no one had an idea about where it was later on.
Fast forward to 19th century, Indians and the British surveying the land discovered an entire dry river valley in the middle of the desert, not far from location mentioned in ancient texts. It roughly runs behind the modern India-Pakistan border.
Many wondered where the lush and prosperous Saraswati flood plain mentioned in Vedic texts went, and why did the river dry up.
The most common theory today is that the river, while real, suffered drastic effects in the massive climate change of late 6th century AD, and lost its course. The mention of it in imperial texts disappears by the next century. Parts of the river lingered around until 9th century but increasing desertification eventually destroyed it completely. And the river passed from memory.
It remains like that today, just a faintly recognizable river valley in the middle of the desert.
Howl's sleeping castle 8 hours ago
From what I have read , it is believed that major earthquakes caused rivers like the Sutlej and the Yamuna to change their courses, thereby cutting off Saraswati's primary water supply.
#11
In the 1960s there were rumours that the US government had been carrying out secret germ-warfare tests on its own citizens. These rumours were strongly denied.
Then in the 1970s, when pressed by Senate hearings, the military admitted that, between 1949 and 1969, such tests HAD taken place, most notably on the New York subway system.
#12
For a few hundred years the Micronesians, a stone-age culture, had the fastest sailboats in the world. The first few reports of how fast the boats went were derided as fantasy. It wasn't until George Anson made actual measurements and drawings in the 1740s it was taken seriously.
#13
North Korean kidnappings of some Japanese people.
They were just rumors and a 'myth' for a while, but then NK came out and admitted that they totally did it.
#15
The Japanese Divine Wind legend. Said to have saved the Japanese from two Mongol invasions and ultimately play a major role in the fall of the Mongol Empire.
Turns out it did happen, but the reason the Mongol's boats sank was because the Chinese ship builders intentionally built a fault into the ships that would cause them to sink once wind/sea conditions hit a specific level. The Mongols who knew nothing about ships were totally oblivious to the subtle built in error.
The Divine Mistake.
#16
Mountaineers found a small lake in the himalayas, absolutely covered in bones. As they searched, they found the bodies of at least two hundred, as well as potentially up to three times that many in the lake itself. All of them suffered blunt force trauma from what appeared to be a rockslide, but there was no sign of any such rocks.
According to legend, Raja Jasdhaval, the king of Kanauj, was traveling with his pregnant wife, Rani Balampa. They were accompanied by servants, a dance troupe, and others as they traveled on a pilgrimage to Nanda Devi shrine, for the Nanda Devi Raj Jat, which takes place every twelve years. As they traveled, they were overcome by a sudden, severe hailstorm with extremely large hail stones. The storm was too strong, and with nowhere to take shelter, the entire group perished.
It was long thought to be a legend, but now they think it actually happened, almost exactly the way it was said to have happened.
#17
The Shang Dynasty, China's second dynasty according to traditional historiography.
Until the 20th Century, there was no direct evidence that it had existed besides records describing it left behind by dynasties that came centuries after them, and it was ascribed semi-mythical status.
Then one day somebody realized that "dragon bones" being ground up by a bunch of villagers to make medicines were actually oracle bones, the first direct written evidence of the Shang Dynasty's existence left by the dynasty itself.
The dynasty preceding the Shang, the Xia Dynasty, is still considered mythical, and since it precedes writing its existence is harder to verify.
Edit: Archeologists have however recently found evidence of a massive flood on the Yellow River 4000 years ago that has been suggested to correspond with the Great Flood of the Xia Dynasty's founding myth.
#18
The coelcanth. It's a type of fish that was thought to be extinct for over a hundred million years, until it was found off of the coast of Madagascar in the 1930s by a fisherman. It's a pretty cool story – really makes you question what's out there.
#19
Rogue waves were once considered tall tales told by sailors and captains were shamed if there ship was damaged or sunk by them. Now they are studied by scientists.
#20
Jews in Ethiopia lived in really isolated villages. They did not believe that there was any such thing as "white jews"
Edit - Here is a pbs link that gives a bit more detail.
Relevent portion:
"Mr. Wattenberg:There’s that lovely one that the Ethiopians are descendants of a torrid love affair between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
Mr. Bard:That’s right, but that actually -– the Ethiopian Jews themselves don’t like that theory. They don’t subscribe to it. It’s actually more from the non-Jews who have accepted that idea, so no one’s really sure and they weren’t even discovered until fairly late in the game. In the ninth, tenth century, people began to find out about them, there was little written history. Travelers began to discover them, missionaries, but the Ethiopians themselves always had this desire to go to their homeland and they were never aware there was such a thing as White Jews.
Mr. Sabahat: when we did the journey from the villages, we didn’t understand about the people that [are] living in the counrty of Israel. We came without to understand the politics, and we came without to understand that there is other people who are living on that land. So try to imagine the first time that we saw white people, we were scared and we thought that they got a skin problem. And when we discovered that they are Jewish, we were much more terrified to discover there is a Jewish –- a White Jewish people because we thought that we are the only Jewish that exist in this way. So when you’re doing this kind of journey, walking in the desert, you’re feeling like Moses when he took his exile from Egypt and we had to wander fourteen years in a desert. And then those who are pure enough will be in the Holy Land. And it’s absolutely amazing thing because the first time that we saw that white guy, we were actually terrified from him.".
#21
There was an island that was rumored to have dragons on it. Explorers didn't find fire-breathing or flying lizards, but they did find the largest living lizard, and called it the Komodo Dragon.
#22
Kangaroos were once classified as Cryptids (along with Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, etc.)
Before it was established that they kept their babies in their pouches, it was told that they were "creatures with two heads". Makes me think what other cryptids we actually are just seeing wrong.
Ace 5 hours ago
Nonsense. They were first recorded by Captain Cook's expedition of 1770. Before that they were unknown to the Western World and very much real to the Aboriginal peoples who hunted them. All else apart the word "Cryptid" is a modern term, so no way could they have been classified as such back in the 16th century.
#23
Ball lightning is pretty fascinating.
There have been anecdotal reports of it for hundreds of years, but it was hard to document because it doesn't last long and it couldn't be photographed. It's also hard to create it in a lab. But it is acknowledged now that it does exist.
I first read about it in one of the Little House on the Prairie books and thought it was wild. I wasn't sure if it was real or some kind of hallucination.
David Paterson 11 hours ago (edited)
The number of published theories of ball lightning exceeds to number of published descriptions of close observations. Theories range from thermonuclear explosions to soap bubbles. All the published theories are wrong, most can't explain why it's ball shaped, and those that can explain that can't explain how it can pass through a window without leaving a hole. Very few can explain how it can leave a titanium residue on something it hit.
#24
Cups of microwaved liquid apparently exploding, aka Superheated Water. When it first was reported it no one would believe it - people getting scalded when they take an apparently still, non-boiling cup of liquid out of a microwave and have the contents suddenly burst up out of the container.
It's now well-documented and the mechanism understood..
#25
A boiling river in the Amazon. tl;dr of the story as I heard it on Weird Wonders of the World:
Back in conquistador days Spanish explorers went into the jungle. When they came out one of the many stories they told was of a boiling river that k****d any living thing that fell in. Some guy heard these stories growing up, went into geology, and asked around about it. Nobody in academia knew of any such river so he gave up. He mentions the topic among family in a "too bad it's not real" way and his aunt says "but it is." She takes him to some locals and he takes a trip to see it. It totally is and it *is boiling*, not just pretty hot. It's way hotter and larger than anything else in the area and they're not sure yet why/how that much geothermal activity is going on at that spot.
#26
A black swan.
It used to be a saying 'hunting for a black swan' meaning a futile attempt to look for something that doesn't exist.
When the black swan was discovered in Australia, the saying changed to mean something everyone thought didn't exist, but in fact does.
#27
The eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. When Pliny's account of the eruption was first found by Victorian's, none believed such a 'fanciful' tale. Only with modern reconstructive science and study of the geology do we know that his account was mostly accurate.
#28
In Portugal, I can't remember where exactly, there was this tradition where every year the local priest would bless a batch of bread. That bread would then be kept in a closed chest, in church, and would be given only to people who were ill. The bread would only be replaced the next year, so if you were unlucky enough to get ill 8 months after having the bread blessed and stored, you would be given moldy bread.
This however proved to be effective sometimes, actually saving people's lifes (though not by direct Divine intervention), for the mold in the bread would fight infections just like penincilim.
I always found this story quite fascinating.
#29
Gorillas. Giant squid. Before they were documented, they only existed in stories for a long time.
Panda McPandaface 11 hours ago
I'm pretty sure some indigenous peoples must have seen gorillas.
#30
Giant Redwood trees were thought to be a hoax by a great many people back in the day.
Geoffrey Scott 4 hours ago
If you're ever in Michigan, Hartwick pines state park has a white pine leftover from the logging days(1800's). Not as big as a Redwood, but pretty big
#31
The Okapi was once thought to be a fake. Turns out it wasn't. Just like many other animals before the modern age, if you didn't have its hide (or a live specimen) to prove it, it was assumed fake.
#32
Atoms were first thought of by Ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. He called them "atomos" which meant smallest part. It took over 2000 years before he was proven right. During his time people believed the four elements were still earth, wind, fire, and water.
Roman Arendt 9 hours ago (edited)
'átomos' (á-tomos) means 'undividable' or 'non-cuttable'. From 'témnein'/'témnō' = to cut/ I cut.
#33
Jade burial suits from ancient China were thought by archaeologists to be myths until actual suits were found in the mid-20th century.
Kiki Likes Sweets 8 hours ago
Saw those at The China Exhibition that toured Australia in the late 70s. Absolutely amazing craftsmanship.
#34
Turning lead into gold. Alchemists tried to do it for centuries, but with no success. No one could ever get a philopher's stone created. The mysticism of alchemy eventually gave way to the scienc of chemistry. People scoffed at the idea of turning lead into gold.
Then someone went and built a particle accelerator.
That’s all what I yam 10 hours ago
Physicists at CERN's ALICE experiment have confirmed the transmutation of lead into gold using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The experiment created roughly 86 billion gold nuclei, totaling only 29 trillionths of a gram, which existed for only a microsecond. There is an article on the CERN News site, "ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC”, 8 May 2025, that describes the experiment.
#35
The city of Ninive. It is mentioned in the bible and literally nowhere else, so it was regarded as fictional or an alternative name for another city, until they found the ruins of an old city complete with inscriptions that it was in fact, Ninive.
#36
The Pygmy Hippo
For years it was considered a myth - scientists believed it was just a legend told by the local tribes. And then a few years back, look how cute that guy is!
#38
The landfill of Atari ET cartridges was considered an urban legend for a long time. When it was initially reported, people within the company gave conflicting reports on whether or not the landfill existed and how big it was. Hilariously, this turned out to be true as the landfill was discovered in 2014 and had some ET cartridges.
edit: Here are 3 links I provided to someone earlier:
Wiki
Snopes
Ars Technica
As pointed out in the Snopes article, what appears to have made it into a "legend" is that the size of it became widely exaggerated over the years. Not to mention people at Atari were both confirming and denying its existence. The fun part is that what we suspected all along is true and we know the scope of it.
#39
Prion diseases like mad cow and fatal familial insomnia and kuru.
They are caused by a protein malformation and yet are communicable, which was thought to be impossible by epidemiologists. And yet here we are with prion diseases caused by genetics (fatal familial insomnia), by consumption of brain tissue (mad cow, kreutzfeld jacob, kuru) and now by pathogen (chronic wasting disease).
#40
Panda bears.
Nobody used to believe they existed because those who found them had to go so far to do so and weren't guaranteed a spotting.
#41
Room 641A. It's a room inside an AT&T telecommunications backbone that was rumored to house beamsplitters to monitor all internet traffic in the United States. Once PRISM was released it was insane how accurate the conspiracy theories were.
#42
Not quite a myth but Jonathan Swift wrote in Gulliver's Travels (1726) about Mars having 2 moons about 150 years before they were discovered (in 1877). He got their distances from Mars and orbital periods not ridiculously wrong, either.
#43
For a long time, the only knowledge to the Hittite civilization was their reference in the Hebrew Bible. Turns out they were a pretty big deal in what is now Turkey.
#44
Black holes. I remember when I was in elementary school, there was a book series of thin informational books about things like bigfoot, loch ness monster, UFOs, and the like. Lumped in with those were black holes.
Ace 4 hours ago
Not sure how old you are, or how old your books were, but they've never been thought of as a legend or myth since they were first proposed by scientists 150 years ago. Over that time a lot of research was done, some notable names like Oppenheimer, Einstein and Hawking helping to develop an understanding of them. The first photos, which showed the proposed "Hawking Radiation" were relatively recent, and confirmed his theories, but there was never a period where they were viewed as mythical.
#45
Germ theory, the man who conceived the idea was dismissed and treated like a lunatic. 'There are millions of tiny invisible creatures all over and inside us that make us ill?' Preposterous!
#46
The "Hobbits of Flores". The local people had an oral tradition of stories about these little people. It was considered to be a myth or a legend, until the bones were found.
Interestingly, the locals have stories of the hobbits up until the 19th century. Presumably these later stories are myths, because we never found bones that recent. But what if...
#47
The Hoan Kiem Turtle was a legendary creature living in Hoan Kiem lake in Vietnam.
In the 15th century the golden turtle god Kim Qui appeared to the emperor of vietnam and gave him a sword. After a war with the Chinese, the turtle reappeared and took back the sword. Sightings of the mythical turtle persisted on and off for hundreds of years until in 1967 a fisherman actually found or caught the turtle and beat it to death with a crowbar. Multiple sightings since then confirmed the turtle or turtles in the lake are very similar to or possible the same creature as the Yangtze giant softshell turtle.
#48
The green light flash above the sea during sunset.
#49
The mole man of edge hill in Liverpool uk, if I remember right the was a myth about a rich guy who built a massive tunnel network under Liverpool and lived down there. Turns out he did and he did it all because of mass unemployment, he was rich dude who did not want to see all the people out of work so he hired them to build a network of brick tunnels under his house, later he went a bit crazy and lived down there. The people who built the tunnels then went on to build all the train tunnels in Liverpool, which some actually intersect the mole mans tunnels and you can see where they have been bricked over.
#50
Earth revolving around the sun was just a myth.
People believed that the sun revolves around the earth.
Jan Rosier 7 hours ago
no, stupid catholics tried to enforce this, but already long before Copernicus there were civilisations that know the earth revolves around the sun
#51
Back in the day, there was an old Scottish superstition. Scotch brewers used to have these big copper stills, and once they got worn out, they'd be very dented and worn. When a new still was made, the dents from the old one were replicated, as it was believed that doing this preserved the flavor profile of the last still. This was later found out to be true, although I have no source for it.
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Panda McPandaface 11 hours ago
So most of this list should be titled 'Things That White Europeans Didn't Believe Existed' - many if not most of these were perfectly common knowledge to the uncivilised savages that had lived with them for centuries.
CP 3 hours ago (edited)
You could do that if you want to miss the point entirely. There is another list of totally mythical creatures and events that were "perfectly common knowledge" and aren't real. You would agree with them be wrong just because they weren't "White Europeans". People act as if documentation is no big deal, when it is a huge deal. The "White Europeans" of that time were trying to apply science. Don't hate that they came up with science first, hate that they treat others as less than for no good reason. The point is to get correct information, not humor everyone.
Load More Replies... David Paterson 11 hours ago (edited)
I'm going to add one. The Labyrinth of Egypt appears in the history of Herodotus (circa 400 BC) as one of the wonders of the ancient world. Believed to be fiction, (like the causeway across the Nile and the giant gold mining ants), until the Labyrinth was discovered at Hawara using satellite imagery in the year 2010.
Apatheist 4 hours ago
The Labyrinth on Crete - home of the minotaur - exists, but it's not an underground maze. It translates as House of the Double-Axes, and one can see twin-headed axe symbols all around the excavated Minoan ruins. Of course, they don't tell you this until the end of the tour...
Load More Replies... Panda McPandaface 11 hours ago
So most of this list should be titled 'Things That White Europeans Didn't Believe Existed' - many if not most of these were perfectly common knowledge to the uncivilised savages that had lived with them for centuries.
CP 3 hours ago (edited)
You could do that if you want to miss the point entirely. There is another list of totally mythical creatures and events that were "perfectly common knowledge" and aren't real. You would agree with them be wrong just because they weren't "White Europeans". People act as if documentation is no big deal, when it is a huge deal. The "White Europeans" of that time were trying to apply science. Don't hate that they came up with science first, hate that they treat others as less than for no good reason. The point is to get correct information, not humor everyone.
Load More Replies... David Paterson 11 hours ago (edited)
I'm going to add one. The Labyrinth of Egypt appears in the history of Herodotus (circa 400 BC) as one of the wonders of the ancient world. Believed to be fiction, (like the causeway across the Nile and the giant gold mining ants), until the Labyrinth was discovered at Hawara using satellite imagery in the year 2010.
Apatheist 4 hours ago
The Labyrinth on Crete - home of the minotaur - exists, but it's not an underground maze. It translates as House of the Double-Axes, and one can see twin-headed axe symbols all around the excavated Minoan ruins. Of course, they don't tell you this until the end of the tour...
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