Ghost Stories

I'm sure some of you have heard about a supposedly haunted house attraction the Chimera House or "13 Floor Money Back House" so frightening that no one has been able to complete a full tour of it. Sorry to burst your bubble but this house doesn't exist. It started to circulate among the population around in the mid-1980s. Like most urban legends, there are many variations of this one. However, they have some common links. The location of this house is usually set in the South or Midwest, but it is believed this legend may have started in Kansas City. Some have it located in an actual supernatural location or an abandoned hospital. Rumor also has it that the haunted attraction Britannia Manor may have also been the inspiration for the Chimera House. The "house" has a specified number of floors or levels (most of the time it's 13 floors), and visitors are charged an exorbitant fee for entering, but get back a specified dollar amount for each floor or l...

Thanks to a 2007 film, the name “Sweeney Todd” has once again become fresh in people’s minds. The story of the murdering barber has been around for a few centuries, but is there any truth to the fictional story? Many over the years have attempted to bridge the gap between fact and fiction. One alleged candidate may have been a 17th Century landlord at one of England's oldest Coaching inns known as the Ostrich Inn. In 1106 Milo Crispin founded an inn named The Hospice (now believed to be the Ostrich Inn). Dick Turpin used the Inn as a hideout, escaping the Bow Street Runners by jumping out of a window. King John is rumored to have stopped at the Inn on the way to Runnymede to sign the Magna Charta. A former landlord named John Jarman and his wife installed a large trap door under the bed in the best bedroom located immediately above the inn's kitchen. The bed was fixed to the trap door and the mattress securely attached to the bedstead. When two retaining iron pins were remove...

There is an Oak tree not like any other in Bernards Township, New Jersey. In the Summer time, it's a sight of beauty. Winter, however, brings out its more sinister side. The Devil's Tree has many legends attached to its branches. Travel back throughout the years to a time when the KKK's power dominated many parts of the United States. The Devil's Tree sat in an isolated part of the woods. As per the KKK's ritual, many men and women were lynched on a single branch almost parallel to the ground. Years before they met their fates, rebellious slaves hung by their necks in colonial times from that tree. Another legend states a man killed his entire family. Then, he walked to that tree and hung himself. These alleged deaths are believed to not be the only murders/suicides that have occurred at the branches of this tree. Some believe the Devil's Tree is cursed, responsible for all the souls who died by its wooden tendrils. Others consider it the property of the Devil a...

There are a series of rail tunnels in western Pennsylvania. Only one, Green Man Tunnel is said to be haunted. The legend begins with a man who supposedly worked for an electric company. He was electrocuted by a down power line or struck by lightning. Some variations claim he died and now haunts the tunnel. Another states he was horribly disfigured and became a recluse. Others claimed his face glowed or was tinted green. It's believed that if you drive or go in the tunnel and call out his name, the green man will appear. Like some, there may be a degree of truth to this legend. There was a man named Ray Robinson. On June 18, 1919 at the age of eight, he accidentally touched a high-voltage electrical trolley line which left his face disfigured. Locals called him "Charlie no face". He lived his life as a recluse and only came out at night. Teenagers would stop and talk to him along Route 351. They brought him beer and cigarettes. Some say his second nickname "The Green...

I'm a country girl from small-town America. The thought of gangs didn't have the same effect on us as The Phantom Killer did in the 1940s. This is not to say that every small town is safe in that regards. One urban legend that has floated around for quite some time is that of the "Gang Lights Initiation". Like many urban legends, there are many variations to the story. The one highlighted in the movie Urban Legends consisted of the girls driving along with their headlights off. Then a car passing by was being courteous by flashing his own headlights to signal them. While he continued to drive on, the girls did a U-turn and raced after him, flashing their lights until the guy had a wreck and died. Other versions consist of the initiative to kill their "targets" by shooting them. It's unclear what the origins of this urban legend is. Some believe it derives from a Hell's Angels initiation in Montana. Or possible a gang initiation in Memphis Tennessee. ...

July 29th marked the 33rd anniversary of The Mamas and the Papas singer Cass Elliot's death. You would think a music legend would be most known for what she brought to the industry, but she is most often remembered by the myth tied to her death. Many rumors began to circulate after her death which included she died from a drug overdose, the FBI planned to assassinate her, and she was pregnant with John Lennon's baby. However, the most well known was she died from chocking on a ham sandwich. This is simply not true. The official cause of death was a heart attack brought about by fatty degeneration of the heart muscle fiber. Her prolonged obesity and crash diets weakened her heart to the point of failure. She was the subject of many cruel jokes because of her physical appearance. This infamous myth gave the impression that she committed the deadly sin of "gluttony" and therefore, brought death upon herself. A mistake made by the first physician to examine Cass Elliot...

Myspace has gotten a lot of bad press thanks to pedophiles, gangs, etc. This urban legend ranks pretty low on the list. A story began circulating late last year about a girl who died in a sewer. The story included a warning. If you didn't repost this story on Myspace, the ghost of this girl would kill you. Of course, this one is not true. What supposedly happened was a girl named either Carmen or Jessica was pushed down a sewer by five girls in her school. The purpose was to embarrass the girl, but instead, she broke her neck on the ladder and her side on the concrete bottom. The five girls told police that she fell and they believed them. If you didn't pass on the story, the ghost of the girl would come through the sewer, toilet, shower or whatever and get you or if you were sleeping, you would wake up in the sewer. Then, she would kill you by breaking your neck and peel skin off your face. Snopes did a search and found no record of any teen girl dying in such a manner anywher...

Urban Legend - After repeatedly complaining about the smell in their room, a couple staying in a hotel discovers the body of a murdered girl under their bed. Can you imagine checking into a hotel while vacationing or after a long drive and discovering that foul smell present in your room is actually a decomposing body under the bed? It's unsure exactly which true account this legend derived from but more than likely it's true. This is a situation that happens more often than we would like to admit. As time passes, details are always fudged. Most often the "Bawdy under the Bed" legend is usually set in Las Vegas with a man in the hotel room with questionable company. I guess that makes for a more scandalous story than a Beaver Clever type family finding a dead body in a small town motel. Allow me to venture into the actual tales of these gruesome discoveries. In July 1996, a woman's body was found under a mattress in the Colorado Boulevard Travelodge in Pasadena, C...

I remember when I was in school (can't remember if it was junior high or high school) that a rumor was spreading and people were getting all panicky. The rumor was to be careful when going to the movies because someone was pricking people with a needle or thumbtack that had AIDS infected blood on it, saying "Welcome to the world of AIDS" and then running off or something to that effect. I don't know how it got started but I was guilty about being a little more cautious when going to see a movie because of it. If you've heard this one, allow me to put your mind at rest. According to Snopes, this urban legend is false. There are two reported incidents in 1996 and 2005 where someone sat on a needle at the movie theater but neither of the victims contracted AIDS or HIV. So how did it get started? The pin pricked story actually dates back to the 1930s. In the New Orleans area, young girls were told to beware of the Needle Men. They were instructed to sit at the end of ...

I guess Joanna at Paranormal Experience has been quite busy lately. I haven't seen the guest post I sent her up on her blog. Since Halloween is tomorrow, I feel this should be posted. If you are a parent, I'm sure you always check your kids Halloween candy after a night of trick-or-treating, right? A popular urban legend states that there are documented cases of children being poisoned after eating candy collected from a random house on Halloween. This one is actually false. It's not certain of the origins of this legend, but according to Snopes.com ( http://snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp ), there have been only two cases where a child was poisoned with Halloween candy. The most famous was that of an eight-year-old boy in Houston named Timothy Mark O'Bryan who died on October 31, 1974. His father Ronald Clark O'Bryan poisoned him with a cyanide-laced Pixie Stix, claiming his son acquired it while trick-or-treating. To make it seem more random, he gave poiso...

I'm sure some of you have heard about a supposedly haunted house attraction so frightening that no one has been able to complete a full tour of it and maybe you went a bit further and tried to find it. Sorry to burst your bubble but this house doesn't exist. It started to circulate among the population around in the mid-1980s. Like most urban legends, there are many variations of this one. However, they have some common links. The "house" has a specified number of floors or levels, and visitors are charged an exorbitant fee for entering, but get back a specified dollar amount for each floor or level completed. those who complete the full tour get back every cent they paid to get in. In the same breath, however, one hears that no one has yet managed this feat — this place has proved too darned scary for those who've so far tried it. Some versions include that a few visitors never came out of the exit and were later found dead on the top floor. Many have filled...

Urban Legend : This photo was taken in a hospital after the patient was in an accident where he was responsible for a young woman's death. It is said that when you receive this image and do not send it to at least five people, the woman will look for you during the night to collect your soul. People in Laredo, Texas, received this image and did not send it and were killed outside a bar; it looked as if this woman killed them. Send it to five people or the woman will look for you. Origins: First of all, I hate chain letters. Yeah, some of them are cute and/or funny but I never send any. Guess what? Nothing has ever happened to me. No dire consequences at all. As for this legend, the killer chain letter is totally FALSE. No one was killed in Laredo, Texas as a result of not sending the letter. Actually the photo above is from a Thai horror film variously titled The Mother or The Unborn or Bangkok Haunted 2: The Unborn . The image was used as the DVD artwork for the movie. The sleepi...

Urban Legend : People have been buried alive by mistake. Status: True Origins: Live burials aren't unheard of. There are many known cases of possible live burials. In the first century, magician Simon Magus buried himself alive, expecting a miracle which never happened. A 13th-century author named Thomas a Kempis, wrote The Imitation of Christ, didn't become a saint because when they dug up his body for the ossuary they found scratch marks on the lid of his coffin and concluded that he was not reconciled to his fate. In the late 16th century, one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Matthew Wall tripped causing the others to drop the coffin which revived Wall. he went on to live several more years, dying in 1595. A more recent case occurred in 1993. Sipho William Mdletshe, 24, was declared deceased after a traffic accident in Johannesburg, South Africa. He spent two days in a metal box before workers heard his cries and rescued him. However, his fiancée, who was also hurt in th...

I'm sure you've all seen the popular 1987 film Three Men and a Baby . but how many of you know there's supposedly a "ghost" in the film? Where you ask. The little ghost boy can be seen in the scene where Jack's mother, Mrs. Holden, and Jack are walking around the apartment. If you look closely, you will see a little boy standing in front of the window behind the curtains. Of course, there have been many rumors as to where this little boy came from. Some say he committed suicide with a shotgun in that apartment. With other variations, merely just mention how he died. The one I heard was that the little boy choked on a piece of food and died. Then, his parents moved out of the house, and he haunts the apartment, making his grand appearance in the movie. According to Snopes , the truth is very much mundane. The boy is actually just a cardboard cutout for advertising reasons concerning part of the storyline about Jack in a dog food commercial. A prop that was acc...

The Legend : The protective ghosts of little children killed at a railway crossing push stalled cars off the tracks. Basically, the story goes like this: In Texas, a school bus full of children stalls on the railroad tracks as a train was heading their way. Despite the efforts of the driver, the bus wouldn't start again and the train was coming too fast to get the children off. Everyone died. Now, if you stop on the railroad tracks, some say that the car will start rolling on its own. Small handprints that of children would be found on the back of your car. The spirits of the children guard the railroad crossing, making sure no one else suffers their fate. Dating back to the 1970s, there are variations to the true origins of this legend. The story above is but only one version. Another one has a form of tame demon assisting the dead kids in their crusade. San Antonio claimed this legend to be its own but the actual bus accident took place in Salt Lake City. In the late 1930s, twent...

Ever heard of a game played at parties where you stand in front of a candlelit mirror while saying a name thirteen times in hopes of summoning a vengeful spirit? This game is played mostly at sleepovers with squealing girls but boys have been known to call upon her also. There are many variations of this game including total darkness instead of lit candles or instead of saying "Bloody Mary" you say "Hell Mary." But what is the history behind the game? How did it start? Above all, who is "Bloody Mary"? Some say Mary was a witch that was executed about a hundred years ago for practicing black magic. She has also been confused with Mary I of England who was nicknamed "Bloody Mary" because of the number of Protestants she had put to death during her reign. Mary, Queen of Scots was also said to have been "Bloody Mary" but this Mary wasn't known for murdering her subjects although it said she had a hand in her husbands death. Of course, t...

A girl and her boyfriend, looking for a little privacy, decide to park their car in the woods so they could make out. When they were done, the boy got out to go to the bathroom and the girl waited for him in the safety of the car. After waiting five minutes she became nervous and got out of the car to look for him. Suddenly, she sees a man in the shadows. Scared, she gets back in the car to drive away, when she hears a very faint squeak... squeak... squeak... This continued a few seconds until the girl decided she had no choice but to drive off. She hit the gas as hard as possible but couldn't go anywhere, because someone had tied a rope from the bumper of the car to a nearby tree. Well, the girl slams on the gas again and then hears a loud scream. She gets out of the car and realizes that her boyfriend is hanging from the tree. The squeaky noises were his shoes slightly scraping across the top of the car!!! This is a very popular urban legend that some believe is based on a true s...