Urban legends. You know them. The scary stories you always hear at sleepovers or around a summer campfire. The ones that have been told and retold, passed down from one generation to the next, sometimes taking on new twists and turns as they go. Can you believe the first traces of these contemporary legends date back to the 1960s? And the same elements that make them such good urban myths — the horrifying, the humorous, and the cautionary — kept the legends alive until now.
Yeah, you heard that right. You might be surprised to learn that urban legends are still alive and well in our society. Not only have they been turned into movies and TV shows, but some have even inspired games and popular fiction tropes! The stories of haunted houses, serial killers, and evil spirits are so ingrained in our minds that we don’t realize how much of an impact they’ve had on popular culture — and how many people still love hearing them.
So if you’re looking for a fun way to test your knowledge of modern myths, or want to prolong the Halloween spirit this year, here are some of the most famous urban legends that show no signs of leaving our minds anytime soon!
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Ghost jogger
Modern legends tell stories of a friendly ghost jogger that knocks on people’s car windows to say hello. Another version describes a man who woke up one night and saw someone jogging past his window, then remembered he lived on the second floor.
The licked hand
A scary urban legend popular among teenagers. The story narrates how a killer secretly spends the night under a girl’s bed, licking her hand when offered, which the girl thinks is her dog. The girl only finds the truth the following day, when she finds her dog dead in her closet and a bloody message — “humans can lick too.”
Arizona’s Skinwalkers
Skinwalkers are said to be people (some versions say they are former healers) who turned evil and acquired the ability to shapeshift into animals and other people. This Native American legend is so deeply rooted in Arizona’s culture that when a Navajo woman was found brutally murdered in 1987, people said only a Skinwalker could have done that.
not just arizona. i grew up in utah, very big thing here as well. mostly in southern and middle-ish parts
The call is coming from inside the house
A young woman working as a babysitter receives a creepy call from a mysterious person asking, “Have you checked the kids?” She then calls the police, only to find out the call came from inside the house. A version of the story ends up with the children getting murdered. This famous urban legend became a popular horror scenario.
Night marchers
According to Hawaiian folklore, night marchers are the ghosts of highly respected Hawaiian warriors who march around the islands to protect the most sacred areas.
Bloody Mary
According to this folk legend, the spirit of Bloody Mary appears to reveal the future if you say her name multiple times while looking in a mirror. Different versions of it depict her as a benevolent or evil creature depending on the story. Some have tried to explain the phenomenon, stating that staring into a mirror in a scarcely lit room for a prolonged period of time can cause hallucinations.
Some of my classmates in the 3rd grade wanted to unleash her on our school. They were so disappointed when it didn’t work
The little girl on Knock Knock Road
A young girl murdered on Knock Knock Road in the Detroit area now appears to drivers at their car windows and taps on the glass, trying to find her killer.
The kidney heist
In this local legend, a man is seduced by a charming woman and spends the night with her. The next morning he wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, only to find one of his kidneys has been removed and sold on the black market.
La Mala Hora
La Mala Hora is an evil entity from New Mexico folklore that haunts crossroads at night, hunting solo travelers. Legend says that meeting it brings disaster to your family.
The spider bite
In the 1970s, a modern urban legend began emerging in Europe. It featured a young woman bitten on the cheek by a spider. The bite kept swelling until it burst open, revealing hundreds of tiny spiders growing inside her cheek.
Ohhh I saw it in "Scary stories to tell in the dark". I wish I didn't, it got imprinted into my brain
Loch Ness Monster
Also known as “Nessie”, it’s probably one of our list’s most famous urban legends. The Loch Ness monster is allegedly a massive creature with a long neck, found in the waters of the Scottish Highlands. In ancient Scottish stone carvings, Nessie has been depicted as a hostile creature that attacks swimmers and fishermen.
The 100 Steps Cemetery
This modern legend claims that if someone enters this cemetery at midnight, they must climb the steps and count to 100. At this point, an undertaker’s spirit will appear and show the person a vision of their death. On the way back down, the visitor must count the steps again — if the number of steps is the same, the vision is false. People who tried to trick the ghost by avoiding the steps altogether have reported being shoved to the ground by a mysterious force.
This, people, is why you need reflexes and super balance. Bring it on, shoving ghost
The spirits of Hoosac Tunnel
The Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts has had its fair share of tragic events. One of the most horrendous happened when 13 miners got trapped inside the tunnel due to an explosion. While everyone thought they were dead, it was later discovered the miners had survived for some time but eventually died due to poisonous gas inhalation. Rumors say the 13 miners have been haunting the tunnel ever since.
What an awful story to make up about 13 tragic deaths. Their families would be horrified by such stories
The 13th Child (Jersey Devil)
In 1735, a woman who lived in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens got pregnant for the 13th time. Not wanting another pregnancy, she cursed the baby out of frustration. Born as a normal child, the baby later changed into a monstrous creature who has been terrorizing the area ever since. Sightings of the legendary beast became so widespread that it’s rumored the Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward for its capture.
Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward for its capture - clever marketing strategy by the zoo
Bunny Man
Bunny Man is a scary urban legend following a man from Virginia who, dressed as a rabbit, killed people with an axe. Most stories about him occurred around Colchester Overpass, later called “The Bunny Man Bridge”.
Polybius
Polybius’ urban myth emerged when arcade games were still going strong. Polybius was allegedly an arcade game that caused psychoactive and addictive effects as part of an experiment conducted by the government in Portland, Oregon. Men would appear out of nowhere to collect data from the machine before vanishing.
The boy in the bathroom at Pine Haven School
Located in Jamestown, Tennessee, this old school was allegedly the location of a tragic story. The local legend says a group of bullies cornered a boy in one of the bathrooms and pushed him against a mirror, which broke into pieces and killed him. Desperate to hide what they did, the bullies buried the body under the floorboards. The story led people to visit the abandoned building; some swore they could see the boy’s reflection in the mirror.
Chupacabra
The first sightings of this legendary monster were reported in Puerto Rico, but this ominous creature has been said to roam various parts of the Americas. The name "chupacabra" comes from the beast's habit of attacking goats and drinking their blood.
Totally fell for this one in middle school. This kid gave me this incredibly believable story about his mom being a scientist doing research in Puerto Rico where she found this creature attacking local farms. He completely sold it to me because back then internet wasn't huge so it wasn't like we could do a quick Google search plus the whole bit about his mom doing research really sold thre story for me
Hannah Cranna
In the 19th century, Hannah Cranna was accused of witchcraft when her husband died mysteriously by falling off a cliff; people thought she was a witch. She lived to the age of 77. Before her death, she asked for her coffin to be carried to the cemetery by foot, not by wagon. People tried to wheel her coffin during her funeral, but it kept falling off, so they were forced to carry it. When they returned to her house, they found it in flames, sealing her reputation as a witch. Her grave can be found in Trumbull, Connecticut.
The Goat Man of Pope Lick
The Goat Man is said to be a monster with dark fur, pale skin, goat legs, and horns who hides under the bridge at Pope Lick Creek in Louisville. His goal? To lure people onto the train tracks, only to see them be hit by oncoming trains. In 2016, an Ohio woman died here while looking for the Goat Man.
The death of Julia Legare
In the 1800s, the Legares were a wealthy family from South Carolina. One day, their daughter Julia got sick and died, and she was later buried in the family mausoleum. When another family member died years later, the mausoleum was reopened, only to find Julia’s body out of her coffin. It was revealed that she had probably been in a coma, and when she woke up, she attempted to escape but found herself unable to do so. But what’s even more creepy is that the mausoleum door can’t seem to stay shut anymore. The family changed it multiple times, but no door ever remained closed. People say Julia’s ghost keeps it open to avoid getting locked in the tomb again.
The Watcher
The Watcher is the story of the Broaddus family, who moved into a new house in New Jersey. As soon as they settled in, they started receiving threatening and utterly creepy messages signed by “The Watcher”, who claims they’re protecting the house. When the Broaddus family, exhausted by the threats, finally sold the place to live somewhere else, new owners moved in, but they never received any of The Watcher’s letters. The culprit has never been found.
Not so much an urban legend, but rather something that genuinely did happen...
Krampus
Krampus’ urban legend finds its roots in Germanic Christmas folklore. The myth describes Krampus as Santa’s assistant, a half-goat, half-demon, who punishes misbehaving children. While Santa rewards good kids with sweets and gifts, Krampus beats with branches, kidnaps, and sometimes even eats the bad ones.
Mothman
A contemporary legend about a moth-like humanoid creature seen in the Point Pleasant area, West Virginia, in 1967. According to the reports, Mothman has glowing red eyes and enormous wings, and has been first spotted by a couple who claimed the creature was chasing them while they were driving down the interstate.
White Lady Lane
In this legend, a young woman who fell pregnant out of wedlock was forced by her religious parents to marry the baby’s father. Sadly, the baby died. The girl, devastated by her loss and forced marriage, hanged herself from a bridge wearing her wedding dress. Some locals claim to have seen her ghost hanging from the bridge.
Oh we have that one locally. The bridge is on a very dark road with no street lights. In the daytime it's quite a pretty neighborhood but at night it is pretty creepy. The houses on the road are set back pretty far so at night it just looks like a whole wooded area.
Walking Sam and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
The legend of Walking Sam describes him as a tall and slim spirit who stalks lonely and depressed adolescents in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to convince them to commit suicide. From December 2014 to May 2015, 103 suicide attempts were reported at Pine Ridge.
The teen suicide rate at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is four times the US average (Wikipedia)
The Hookman
This local legend dates back to post-war America and recounts the story of a lunatic murderer with a hook prosthesis who escaped from a nearby mental institution. When a young couple hears the news on the radio, they either find a hook stuck in the back of their car or one of them is left suspended above the vehicle, fingers scraping against the roof.
Screaming Jenny
Jenny was a poor woman from West Virginia. One day, while warming something to eat over a campfire, her dress caught on fire and rapidly engulfed her body. As she screamed for help, she ran towards an approaching train, desperately trying to get someone’s attention, but she fell on the tracks, and the train hit her. It’s said that Jenny’s burning ghost can be seen on those same tracks every year on her death’s anniversary, still screaming in pain.
The Char-Man
An urban myth straight from California. The Char-Man tells the story of a father and son who were both left horribly burnt in a fire in 1948. After the tragedy, the son became insane and murdered his father. The police found the son, but because of the scars left on his face, they didn’t realize he was alive and managed to escape from the house before they could arrest him. The story goes that, ever since, he’s wandering the woods and attacking campers.
The Slender Man
The Slender Man is an internet meme created in 2009 by Victor Surge. He’s depicted as a faceless, unnaturally thin, tall man who stalks and traumatizes people, especially kids, sometimes kidnapping them. Despite not belonging to a specific fictional work, he appears in countless horror stories and creepypastas.
theres a new report of two girls who tried to kill their friend to join slenderman
Sasquatch
Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, is a massive creature covered in hair and one of the main protagonists of American folklore and popular culture. Bigfoot is commonly thought to be the missing link between humans and apes.
The ghosts of Slaughterhouse Canyon
During the Gold Rush, a struggling family lived in a canyon in Arizona. The father would often venture around for food. One day he did not return, so his family slowly descended into madness for the lack of food. The mother, unable to bear listening to her children's cries anymore, killed them and threw their bodies into a nearby river. The next day she succumbed to starvation. The myth states that you can hear her anguished cries if you go down to Slaughterhouse Canyon at night.
The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach
The Bandage Man is said to be the ghost of a logger who died in a sawmill accident and now stalks teenagers who hang out near Cannon Beach. Rumors say he tries to get into people’s cars, and his smell is unbearable.
Seven Gates of Hell
The Seven Gates of Hell is a contemporary legend centered on a burnt asylum in York County, Pennsylvania. It’s said that whoever passes through all seven gates will be sent straight to hell.
The frozen people
The legend of the frozen people, as first found in a diary in the late 1800s, recounts the tale of a family living in poverty outside Montpelier who couldn't afford to feed and clothe the whole family. Hence, they froze and buried some of them. Like a miracle, when spring finally came, they were still alive.
Boy Scout Lane
According to a local urban legend, this isolated road in Wisconsin is named after a group of boy scouts who died here. Various versions tell different events: one describes how they all died after their bus crashed; another says the bus driver killed the boys. A more sinister version says they disappeared in the woods one by one. Some visitors reported eerie sightings, like a swinging body in the trees, the feeling of being observed, and child-size handprints here and there.
The Candy Lady
The Candy Lady is an urban legend and the nickname of a woman thought to be responsible for a series of disappearances in the early 1900s in a rural town in Texas. The story says she would leave candy where she knew children lived, luring them out with the promise of more candy.
Mercy Brown and the New England Vampire Panic
Mercy Brown was a young woman from Rhode Island who died from tuberculosis in the 1800s. At the time, people believed tuberculosis was caused by the dead consuming their surviving family members, similar to a vampire. When the rest of Mercy Brown’s family also got sick, people decided to investigate and exhume Mercy’s body, only to find it was almost intact and still had blood in her heart. Thinking she was a real vampire, they burned her heart and liver, but it did nothing to help stop her last family members from succumbing to the illness.
Homey the Clown
In the 90s, parents in Chicago were terrorized by a rumor about a creepy man dressed as a clown who lured children into his van using candy and money. Some versions of the legend said he was a kidnapper, others called him a killer, and he was sometimes described as a rapist.
Oh wow! I always thought it was just a character on 'In Living Color'
The poisoned girl at Centennial Hall
Centennial Hall in Nebraska used to be a high school. In the 1940s, a student suffered a heart attack while playing her clarinet — because someone had poisoned the reed. Now people claim to hear disembodied music and to have witnessed an empty rocking chair moving on its own.
The Yeti
The Yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman, is a white ape-like beast who wanders the Himalayan mountains. Unlike Bigfoot, the Yeti’s legend describes him as a hostile creature, attacking you on sight and able to tear your body in pieces with his bare hands. It’s a common belief that the Yeti is responsible for several disappearances in this territory.
One report of the yeti is that a climber broke their leg and the yeti nursed the climber and helped him heal,
The Kushtaka of the Alaskan Triangle
According to a Tlingit folk tale, Kushtaka are half-human, half-otter spirits responsible for luring people to the water with fake cries to steal their souls and drown them.
Kraken
Known as a massive octopus-like creature from Scandinavian folklore, the Kraken is said to be swimming off the coasts of Norway and Greenland, hunting for human flesh.
The Black Angel
The Black Angel is a statue located in Iowa City that has become blackened due to oxidation — and guess what? Rumors say it’s cursed. One of the tales says that a pregnant woman should never walk near her, or she’ll lose the child. Others say you’ll die in just six months if you touch or kiss it.
Area 51
No urban legend or conspiracy theory is more famous than the one related to Area 51, a mysterious government facility in Nevada that UFO enthusiasts believe has evidence of alien activity.
Cropsey
Cropsey is an urban legend about a children’s serial killer in New York. A documentary released in 2009 suggests that Cropsey may actually be the convicted child kidnapper Andre Rand.
Chain letters
A classic. Chain letters are messages sent by a friend or relative that say that if you don’t forward them to other people, some terrible fate will befall you.
They are actually a ploy to collect contact information for scammy emails, texts and advertisements. Usually.
The Kensington Runestone
In 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer found a giant rock on his farm with symbols that appeared to be Norse. The first scientific examination in 1910 declared it a hoax, but a vast community still firmly believes in its authenticity.
Dudleytown
Ever heard of Dudleytown’s urban myth? This eerie ghost town in Connecticut is said to be haunted. It’s rumored that visitors will be cursed if they steal an artifact from the area. Long abandoned, this settlement has been subject to frequent vandalism, to the point the owners decided to close the zone to the public.
The Witch of Hampton, Goody Cole
Eunice Cole, known as “Goody,” was the only woman in New Hampshire history to be tried for witchcraft — three times. She was blamed for numerous local tragedies, including the crash of a ship and the death of everyone on board.
Goodwife (Scots: Guidwife), usually abbreviated Goody, was a polite form of address for women, formerly used where "Mrs.", "Miss" and "Ms." would be used today. However, a woman addressed by this title was of a lesser social rank than a woman addressed as Mistress. "Goodwife" and "Goody" were used in England, Scotland, and Colonial America, with the earliest known use circa 1325. -- Wikipedia
Location, location, location
An urban legend says that you should check what a property has been built on before buying it: houses built on burial grounds tend to be cursed.
Deer Island’s haunted treasure
In the 1920s, two men were fishing on Deer Island when they heard a noise from the bushes, which they assumed was caused by wild animals. They decided to check it out and saw a headless skeleton. They ran back to their boat, with the skeleton chasing them. Legend says a crew of pirates buried their treasure on Deer Island and decided to behead one of their own and leave his body behind to guard it.
The mysterious Shaman’s portal
The Shaman’s Portal is an urban legend that began after a series of disappearances in Beaver Dunes Park, Oklahoma. The mysterious events in Beaver Dunes Park are thought to have been caused by the fact that it was built upon ancient Native American burial grounds.
Miniwashitu (Missouri River Monster)
The Miniwashitu is said to be a bison-like beast found swimming in the Missouri River in North Dakota. The story goes that if you ever see the creature in broad daylight, you’ll end up going insane.
'YES I AM BEING SEROUS! IT WAS RIGHT THERE IN THE RIVER! WAIT...WHY ARE YOU DIALING THE MENTAL ASYLUM?!'
Petrified Forest
A local legend says that if you steal a piece of petrified wood from Escalante Petrified Forest, you’ll be cursed with bad luck and other unfortunate events for the rest of your life.
The ghost of Mr. Chew
Samuel Chew worked for the Delaware Supreme Court in 1741. Throughout his life, people frequently mocked his name by mimicking sneezes as he walked by. After his death, some people claimed to have seen his ghost wandering the courthouse and creeping out the residents of Dover.
was he sneezing? if he was he should be wearing a mask and staying home
Author should’ve concluded with “If you don’t share this article to 100 people you will be cursed for 100 years! *evil laugh*” 😂
I love this sort of thing. I have heard a lot of these from the something scary podcast and whatnot
Author should’ve concluded with “If you don’t share this article to 100 people you will be cursed for 100 years! *evil laugh*” 😂
I love this sort of thing. I have heard a lot of these from the something scary podcast and whatnot
