Urban legends are a dime a doezen. People often share these stories as though they’re the truth, when, in reality, they’re just old wives’ tales meant to excite, confuse, or otherwise mislead pepole. Here are thirty urban legends that you should stop repeating.
31. Bloody Mary
This one goes something like this. If you turn off the lights in front of a mirror and say the words “Bloody Mary” in front of it three times, you’ll see… something. Legends vary on what, exactly, you see. Needless to say, this isn’t true! Magic, ghosts, and the supernatural are all imaginary. When you see weird flickers in a mirror in the dark, it’s likely your mind giving more definition to the things you’re scared of seeing.
30. Bigfoot
This urban legend holds that there’s one or more giant, ape-like creatures stalking the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. As cool as this would be, it’s really unlikely. If such a large ape species exists, why have scientists never found any physical remains or living specimens?
29. The Loch Ness Monster
Similarly, another urban legend describes the existence of a dinosaur-like creature that lives in Loch Ness in Scotland. “Nessie,” as believers call her, is supposedly a long-lived amphibian who is shy around cameras. As you might expect, there’s no actual evidence (aside from grainy old photos that might just be logs) that such a creature exists.
28. And He Had a Hook… For a Hand!
If you’ve spent any amount of time around a campfire with your pals, you might have heard some variation on this one. The legend goes that a deranged criminal breaks out of a mental institution and chases down unsuspecting victims with his hook-hand. Thankfully, this one appears to be the product of overactive imaginations and imagery from popular slasher films.
27. The 27 Club
The 27 Club is an urban legend that involves the deaths of numerous rock stars at the age of 27. The purported “members” include Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, John Bonham, and Jimi Hendrix. However, statistical research shows that there’s no specific trend for more musicians dying at 27 than any other age. Rockstars, sadly, just tend to live risky lives and can often die young as a result.
26. Clown Sightings
In 2016, there was a sudden upsurge in reports of bizarre clowns being spotted near schools and forests. The outbreak started in Wisconsin, where it was reported that the costumed clowns were just performers engaged in viral marketing for a horror movie. In other parts of the world, the sightings were likely copycats trying to drum up additional scares to capitalize on the Wisconsin reports.
25. Charging Myth
This myth holds that calling an emergency number, like 999, and then immediately hanging up the phone causes mobile phone batteries to charge. It’s likely that this myth started as a way of pranking emergency lines and fooling gullible people. Suffice it to say, this doesn’t charge your phone, as you’d need to actually connect it to a power outlet to charge it.
24. Anastasia Romanov
Another popular myth suggests that Anastasia Romanov of the Russian royal family survived the massacre of the Romanovs by Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1918. Sadly, this one is just a legend: it’s extremely unlikely that Anastasia was able to evade the fate that befell her family.
23. From Inside the House
Another popular campfire story purports that a babysitter upstairs with the children gets a phone call from a mysterious man urging her to check on the kids. This story usually includes the stinger “the call was coming from inside the house!” Thankfully, this one appears to be purely fiction, as no real-world crime mirrors this tale.
22. Area 51
You’ve probably heard about this one. The Nevada Test and Training Range, also known as Area 51, is said to house bizarre government experiments, including captured UFOs and alien remains. It’s unlikely that humans have ever contacted any alien species, due to the vast distances between celestial bodies in outer space.
21. Exmoor Beast
This is one of many beast urban legends from the UK. The Exmoor Beast was purportedly a cat-like monster that stalked the locals and wildlife of Exmoor. Such a large, bloodthirsty big cat was unlikely to have been well-suited to the dreary, cold climate in England and was probably a result of overactive imaginations, not a tiger loose from the zoo.
20. Raynham Hall
A ghost known as the Brown Lady supposedly haunts Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England. The legend holds that the ghost is that of Dorothy Walpole, and it was popularized after photographers snapped a spooky image of some kind of apparition on the stairs of Raynham Hall. Thankfully, ghosts aren’t real, and this image was likely a result of photo manipulation or some kind of overexposure.
19. Rule of Threes
A popular myth holds that bad things, like celebrity deaths or natural disasters, occur in threes. This one is easy to find evidence for because people love patterns and often group things into threes. However, statistical analysis of disasters and celebrity deaths shows no trend for them to occur clustered in threes. Celebrities die daily, and natural disasters are common occurrences.
18. Chupacabra
This popular myth is prevalent in Spanish-speaking parts of the world. A monster said to stalk cattle (especially goats) is given the name “Chupacabra,” and is lent vampire-like abilities. There’s no real-world evidence for the existence of such a creature, and the scenes of its purported attacks are easily explained by the presence of wild dogs, coyotes, and poachers.
17. Watchers in the Dark
This eerie tale describes a group of silhouetted figures in California folklore known locally as the “dark watchers.” They appear at the tops of ridges and motionlessly keep vigil over travelers in mountain ranges. These spooky figures are likely Brocken specters, which are shadows cast by the viewer that can become giant-like due to specific mountainous atmospheric conditions.
16. Dybbuk Box
A popular legend contends that something called a “Dybbuk Box” can exist. These wine cabinets are said to hold the souls of demon-like entities from Jewish folklore, called Dybbuks. Again, it’s important to remember that evil spirits, ghosts, and magic are all fictional, and thus of no concern to people in the real world.
15. Fan Death
A particularly unusual urban legend from South Korea (and, to a lesser extent, Japan) holds that people who sleep in unventilated rooms with fans pointed at them can die from asphyxiation. This is completely untrue, of course: electric fans don’t cause unventilated rooms to lose oxygen any faster than they would without fans. Still, fans with automatic timers are common in Korea as a result of this unfounded fear.
14. Robert Johnson
A popular musical myth holds that blues musician Robert Jonhson made a deal with the Devil. He purportedly sold his soul to Satan after meeting him “at the crossroads,” and, in exchange, was gifted with absurd musical talent. In reality, Johnson’s virtuosic skill with a guitar was the result of thousands of hours of practice.
13. Backseat Hitchhiker
A woman is driving alone down a deserted road. A semitruck pulls up behind her and acts erratically, flashing his high beams and honking his horn. The woman becomes frightened and quickly pulls off the road to avoid the clearly agitated driver. She’s then killed by the hitchhiker who has been ducking out of her view in her backseat, the man that semitruck driver was trying to warn her about. This campfire story doesn’t seem to be based on reality, thankfully, but it is a spooky tale!
12. Paul is Dead
Here’s one that’s stuck around for ages. Back in the 60s, some Beatles superfans became convinced that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced with a lookalike. The purported evidence pulls from numerous sources, such as the eerie sounds heard in “Revolution 9” and Paul’s barefoot stride on the album cover of Abbey Road. Paul McCartney is, in reality, alive and well, and has poked fun at the theory over the years. One cheeky reference came in his live album, Paul is Live, which itself parodies his famous Abbey Road pose.
11. Poisoned Candy Myth
Parents are really scared of their kids getting poisoned or drugged candy on Halloween. Thankfully, such incidents are purely fictional! It’s possible that these myths originate from anxieties stemming from the Tylenol killer incidents of the 1980s. While it’s smart to not eat food that appears to have been tampered with, there doesn’t seem to be an epidemic of people poisoning Halloween candy.
10. Dogs & Microwaves
This legend involves an old lady who needs to dry her dog, most often a poodle. The addled senior citizen decides the quickest route to drying off fluffy after a bath is to put the pooch in the microwave. The result is… well, you can imagine it if you really want to. Though it sounds horrific, there is no evidence this has ever happened.
9. Alligators in the Sewer System
This tale usually involves the sewer system of New York City. The claim is that people flushed their baby alligators (assumed to have been picked up on travels to Florida) down the toilet and now the sewer system is teaming with wild, roaming gators. However, it’s unlikely gators could survive the cold of New York. That’s if the toxic bacterial stew that exists in NYC sewers didn’t kill them first.
8. Tainted Needles
This legend claims that drug addicts jammed their old needles in coin-return slots of public payphones (or other vending machines). A hapless victim comes along and gets jabbed by an infected needle. A variation on this involves the sand of children’s playgrounds. However, no reports to confirm that any of these situations have happened.
7. Organ Theft
In this legend, a victim has an organ stolen, typically a kidney. Someone awakes in a bathtub full of ice, and a note telling them not to move but to call an ambulance immediately. There are many variations on the victims of this tale, whether a business traveler or student. In 1997, organ donor groups debunked this legend.
6. Rat Urine
The fact that this legend is plausible makes it all the more powerful. In this tale, a store clerk drinks a soda and dies from toxic rat urine that was encrusted on the rim of the can. While the CDC confirms it’s theoretically possible, they deny that such an event involving canned soda ever happened and is highly unlikely.
5. Human Spider Nests
This legend ran rampant with bouffant hairdos in the 1950s. According to the tale, a woman died a mysterious death. Doctors later discovered, unknown to her, that she had been killed by a colony of spiders living in her nest of hair. This legend sometimes reemerges in a modified form with the victim sporting dreadlocks.
4. Pop Rocks
Pop rocks were a popular candy in the 70s and 80s with tiny gas bubbles that popped while eating. A legend claimed that if you consumed the candy with a carbonated drink it would explode in your stomach. The company showed the public tests proving otherwise. However, the untrue tale was so pervasive that the company had little success eradicating the legend.
3. Disappearing Hitchhiker
This urban legend goes back to the horse and buggy times. The passenger is often a young girl. When the driver reaches the destination, the girl has disappeared from the backseat. The driver discovers his passenger had died several years earlier. The chilling aspects of the tale have caused it to persist.
2. Scooped-Up Scuba Diver
In this tale, a hapless scuba diver is scooped up out of the ocean into the bucket of a fire-fighting helicopter. The diver gets dumped inland into the burning embers of a forest fire. Authorities later discover his charred body, sometimes dangling from a tree. However, more often, such helicopters scoop water from rivers or reservoirs or use fire retardants.
Read More: 10 Mythological Creatures Who Turned Out to Be Real
1. Exploding Pigeons
This legend has caused some people to ban throwing uncooked rice at their weddings. According to the tale, the uncooked rice is later consumed by pigeons. The pigeons presumably consume water, the rice expands, which causes the pigeon to explode. Experts say birds can ingest uncooked rice just fine with no ill effects.
Read More: 10 Debunked Myths Your Parents Convinced You Were Real
