Urban legends are the spooky stories told around the campfire and in the darkened rooms of tween slumber parties. Some like The Hookman and Bloody Mary have been around since the mid 20th century. Others like The Vanishing Hitchhiker go back even further and have variations told around the world. I’m more interested in the ones closest to home.
In the town of Prospect, Kentucky, there’s a winding two-lane avenue, called Sleepy Hollow Road. If you’re unlucky, or curious enough to be driving there alone at night, you may see headlights in your rearview mirror. Lights that get closer and closer even as you speed up. Unable to outrun the vehicle it pulls alongside you, it’s a black hearse that forces you off the road into a ravine as it barrels toward Harrod’s Creek Cemetery. Or so I’ve heard.
Russellville, Kentucky, is home to The Sexton House, with its tower window painted white. A young girl was waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up for a dance. Forbidden to go by her parents, she intended to sneak out her bedroom window before a storm ruined her plan. Standing at the window, she cursed God, was struck by lightning and killed. On rainy nights her ghostly image would appear on the glass. For years the various owners of the house were unable to remove the imprint and eventually painted over the window. At least that’s the story.
Those are just a couple of stories from my area. I’d love to hear your regional urban legends.
Happy Halloween!
only urban legend ive come across was a haunted bridge near Duncan, Oklahoma where a girl was murdered..or found dead (little fuzzy on the details as we were all smoking weed and im pretty sure the others were trying to creep out the furriner) apparently some nights you can hear her wail…. but i didnt
did find a cow skeleton….thats not something that happens at home…lol
You don’t need a haunted house or anything like that in Oklahoma. The whole goddamned state is scary enough on its own.
eh…the people were nice..least the ones i met
wasnt a big fan of open carry…might be coz im not american…but everyone being armed did not make me feel safer
Funny how having a bunch of armed people makes everyone feel less safe. It’s almost as if having nobody with a gun might actually be better for public health, safety and overall peace of mind. An Armed Society is a Polite Society my ass.
Seconded. I lived in Tucson, AZ for a brief moment and before my vehicle was delivered I was offered a car to borrow in order to grab some lunch.
Car Lender: Just be careful. There’s a loaded gun under the seat.
Me: Very confused look Why?
CL: Because if you get pulled over you could get in a lot of trouble. You’re supposed to have a permit.
Me: No…I mean why is there a loaded gun under your seat?
CL: Even more confused look Why not?
Me:
I’m well travelled in the states but I’ve never really gotten the impression that Americans are aware of how crazy their normal is perceived by the rest of the world?
I’m not all caught up on Terrible Tall Tales (…always appreciate alliterations) but this is a scary story.
I have a friend who’s a pilot. She flies international. When she hits the lounge after a flight for a drink the other pilots from civilized countries always ask her “what’s the deal with all the guns?” After trump was elected she called me and was like “FUCK, this is going to be so embarrassing!”
Can confirm. I was in Tulsa in March. That is the most deserted “urban” city I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. I was downtown, and I could easily walk down the middle of any street at any time of the day without encountering a car for 10-15 minutes. Barely any pedestrians or people to be seen. Seriously, the whole place is like a set for a zombie movie.
I asked a local where all the people were, and he said they lived in the suburbs. I said, are you sure? Have you sent somebody out there to check? Because this is weird. No homeless people. I assume they were eaten by CHUDs or something.
Half a block from my hotel was a 20-story (or so) building, with 10 or so windows on each floor. Heading back from dinner, I looked up at it, and out of 200 windows, there was one light. While I looked at it, it switched off. Gave me the creeps.
I was not sorry to leave. There’s vampires or zombies or werewolves or something going on there.
I have never been to Oklahoma, after hearing this I don’t think I ever want to go there.
Everything was a setup for a horror movie. I asked the doorman for directions to a restaurant. He said, if you look down this alley and way down there at the end you can see a green light. That’s it. Just walk to it. Down a narrow dark alley in a deserted city toward a flickering green light.
I’m like, oh, fuck, no. I will not be abducted and murdered by the Oklahoma equivalent of the Children of the Corn, which, come to think of it, is probably just the Children of the Corn.
And everybody acted like I was crazy! IM NOT CRAZY THIS SHIT AINT NORMAL WHERE THE GODDAMN PEOPLE AT DID YOU EAT THE FUCKIN PEOPLE
Okay, now I kinda want to go, lol.
All urban legends are fuzzy on the details, weed or not. A whole cow skeleton? That’s pretty creepy.
lol…made me realize my definition of living in bumblefuck nowhere was a little off
cow skeletons do not happen here…something that big dying and going unnoticed just isnt possible..lol (occasionally lonely old people die and go unnoticed for years…but thats a whole other sad story)
also..we dont currently have any wildlife that could kill a cow…tho we have recently aquired some wolves again…sooo maybe?
There is nothing supernatural about this, but when I was in college there was an old, old mental institute a couple of miles away, the kind of place that looked just like a prison. I went running there one time and on the edge of the grounds was a cemetery for all of the patients who had died there.
But instead of names on the tombstones, there were only numbers.
They were the patients who had died either without anyone knowing their true name, or else who had died without anyone to claim them and they had left their graves unnamed to keep their families from being exposed.
I’ve read that since then the institute decided that they should stop dehumanizing the deceased, and they have put up a monument linking all of the numbers to all of the names they could find in their archives. So it’s evidently not quite as grim there as it once was.
Wow, that’s so sad.