Urban legends have been around as long as mankind has been able to communicate to each other that they’re afraid of the dark. Those fears haven’t gone away, and, if anything, we’ve found new things to be afraid of in our modern era. We’re afraid of the intelligence of our technology, that one day, it might not need us. We’re afraid of what lurks in the deep, we’re afraid of what waits in the darkness, and now, we’re afraid we might know too much. Thanks to the internet, urban legends aren’t just for telling around the campfire any more, and they’re still downright disturbing.
10. The Rake
Image: via The Slender Man Wiki, cc-sa-3.0
The Rake is said to be a mysterious, monstrous creature that eventually kills the victims that it stalks, first appearing in 2003 and reportedly hunting the residents of rural New York. Originally, there were videos of the supposed creature posted online, but all the videos soon disappeared - conveniently, perhaps. In 2006, documents were collected that told the story of the Rake, and attempted to paint a historical record of its horrible deeds.
Supposedly, the creature first appeared in the 12th century, although no records are said to survive. There is a mention of it in a reputed 17th century ship’s log, where it’s the last entry ever made. And there’s supposed suicide notes that bid the world farewell, insisting death is a better fate than one that involves the Rake, and there’s journal entries that are said to end with a sighting of the Rake.
The Rake is named for its long, clawed hands, and what it does to its victims. It’s described as a hairless, deformed man of some sort, that looks twisted and broken. Its eyes glow, and it moves with a horrible silence. That silence is one of its favoured weapons, sneaking into bedrooms while its victim is asleep.
One of the main stories about the Rake is told by a woman who has the thing appear at the foot of her bed. It savages her daughter, and while her husband is driving the little girl to the hospital, he drives his car into a lake and kills them both. The mother, distraught, is left questioning.
She begins to look for others that have seen it, and finds that she’s not the only one that’s been stalked by the creature and left tormented but alive.
For now.
9. Nostradamus’s 9/11 Predictions
Image: Zereshk, public domain
Close on the heels of the September 11 tragedy in New York City came people eager to point out that someone, somewhere, knew it was going to happen. In the case of an email forward gone viral, it was said that Nostradamus had predicted the 9/11 attacks centuries before, in a few unsettling verses that seem to point directly at the attacks.
While the verse had been - at least mostly - written before the attacks, it hadn’t been written by Nostradamus at all, and it certainly hadn’t been written in the 16th century. The core of the verses were written in 1997, by a student at Brock University in Canada. The student, Neil Marshall, had written the verse to mimic Nostradamus’s style and, in the ultimate irony, illustrate just how easily a verse could be interpreted to mean whatever the reader wanted it to mean.
Eventually, other lines got added in and swapped out, several of which actually had been written by Nostradamus and were pulled from other prophecies. A couple of different versions were making the rounds, along with other Nostradamus urban legends like the one when his body was exhumed, he was found holding something inscribed with that day’s exact date.
A great story, but absolutely not true.
8. Annora Petrova
Image: via onepagewonder.com
According to the email supposedly sent from one friend to another, Annora Petrova was an ordinary young girl with hopes of becoming a champion figure skater. One night while she was bored, she Googled her name and found a basic Wikipedia page for herself. She kept checking the page, and soon realized that it was just a little bit ahead of her real life, giving her a glimpse into competition wins - and losses.
When she tries to change the page herself to say that she’s won a competition, it turns on her.
The page updates itself, spewing tear-inducing hate at her. Finally, it tells her that she becomes “a pathetic little orphan.” Calls to her parents are answered by laughter, and they’re both killed in an accident.
Annora heads to Switzerland to try to restart her career, and while everything seems to have sorted itself out, she looks at her Wikipedia page again. This time, it tells her that she dies on the following day, “friendless and alone.”
The email ends with a screen-shot of the wiki…and make sure you take a look at the picture before - and after - you click on it.
7. The Webkinz Killer
Image: screenshot via YouTube
In the middle of all the blood and gore and other questionable content, there occasionally comes a few truly kid-friendly sites. Webkinz is one such site. Kids buy adorable stuffed animals, and with those animals comes a code to unlock all kinds of learning games and fun, interactive content on the site. Everything’s fuzzy and adorable, so of course, it’s a target for urban legends.
According to the story, unsuspecting kids will be playing their favourite game, feeding their little pet or decorating their house when something in the game will turn and murder that cute little virtual pet right on the screen.
Legends vary. Some say they’ve gone to the doctor (veterinarian?) and their pet dies after taking their medicine. Visit the clinic at midnight, and he’ll just chop your head off. Another character is said to have a shotgun stashed under her desk, and another has a knife. Sometimes, they attack without warning, and other times, you need to click on something in particular. Usually it’s a random black box that pops up on the screen, and other times, it’s opening packages that either cripple your pet or just make the screen go black…to the sound of chainsaws.
Webkinz itself has issued a statement saying that it’s absolutely not true, and they would never, ever, ever let anything happen to a child’s beloved virtual pet.
6. Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Image: S3NTRYdesigns, cc-nc-nd-3.0
Here’s one for the gamers.
In 2010, a forum user named Jadusable posted a series of bizarre videos and posts about a copy of Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask that he had picked up at a garage sale. A college student strapped for cash, he was strangely unsettled by the blank cartridge the old man - who he would never be able to find again - handed him. He played the game anyway, and he found a strange save file called “Ben.”
Everything was normal at first, but soon, things started happening. There were strange game glitches, there were horrible, in-game deaths that shouldn’t have happened, and there was a statue that followed him everywhere. He didn’t mean to, but he deleted the game…and it started calling him Ben. Soon, he started seeing the statue outside of the game, in his dreams, out of the corner of his eye.
Friends and roommates notice his bizarre behaviour, but he doesn’t explain it. Not entirely, and not until the end - until his last communication, when he explains what’s been going on - and pleads with his readers not to download anything he’s posted about the game.
He doesn’t want Ben to spread.
Ben was the spirit of a neighbourhood boy, trapped in the game that he had been given. Ben began to spread, infecting his computer, speaking to him through it, changing his posts and doctoring his videos. Ben started appearing in his dreams, haunting him or, as Ben said, having fun with him.
Ben was bored, and Ben needed someone to play with.
His last supposed communication details his conversations with Ben, and the truth about what was going on. It’s the truth that Ben wouldn’t let out before, and he’s hoping that with this warning, he’ll be able to stop Ben from spreading to those who had been following him on YouTube. Sure that Ben was going to grow tired of playing with him, Jadusable signed off with the promise that he was going to destroy the game, and - hopefully - stop the spread of Ben.
5. The Megalodon Shark Lives
Image: Karen Carr, cc-3.0
So you’ve just gotten over your fear of Jaws, and you’re finally back swimming in the ocean again. You’re an adult, after all, and giant sharks don’t…
Hold on.
According to the Discovery Channel and loads and loads of videos posted on the internet, giant sharks do exist, and they’ve been savaging people off the coast of South Africa. Shark Week, still immensely popular with Discovery Channel viewers in spite of the idea that much of what the broadcast is either re-hashed, crap, or both, ran a pseudo-documentary in 2013 about the discovery of live, prehistoric, megalodon sharks. In 2014, they followed it up with “The New Evidence,” trying to further establish that the megalodon shark really, really was real. Promise.
They said that fishing vessels in South Africa had been attacked, killing everyone. The documentary was supposedly about a marine biologist on the trail of the truth, but it could more accurately be described as an actor reading a script. Nonetheless, the megalodon special brought in record viewers, and Twitter blew up about the Shark Week revelation, and the story took to the internet and got bigger and bigger.
Real shark experts are still trying to establish the truth behind this new urban legend. The stigma attached to sharks is real enough already, and they’re one of the most misunderstood animals in the world. The tragedy behind this urban legend is that it’s not helping the case of one of the most majestic ocean-dwellers in the world.
But you still might want to stay out of the water. Have you seen the teeth?
4. Poisonous Spiders Are Breeding in North America
Part of the success of urban legends is that they prey on some of our innate fears. Like spiders. Even the harmless ones are creepy and nasty and…well, just look at it.
That’s the Two-Striped Telamonia, and it’s not really a dangerous spider. It’s found in the jungles of southern Asia, and no one’s even been killed by it - mostly because it’s not poisonous. But it did end up being the poster child for an urban legend that surfaced first in 1999.
The emails, variously cited as being from the University of Florida and the Journal of the United Medical Association, warned that this vicious spider had hitched a ride on a plane and made it to North America, where it was breeding indiscriminately. Said to be highly poisonous, it was reported first that 3 Chicago women were stricken by vomiting, chills, fevers, and paralysis, with no discernible reason. They all died, and it was determined that the cause was from a spider bite.
And because the story wouldn’t be complete without a way for any one of us to be bitten, it was also said that the spiders gravitated toward dark, cool, damp places…like under your toilet seat. Where they would wait, lurking in the darkness, waiting for someone to sit down, for the next victim to bite, leaving puncture wounds in a place that no one would look…
Of course, it’s not true. But the legend still makes its rounds, usually with pictures of the same harmless spider. Early versions name places that don’t even exist, while later versions point the finger at restaurants like Olive Garden as being home to the spider. While there certainly are spiders out there that can do some serious damage, they’re probably not living under your toilet seat and they’re definitely not that one.
But still…look before you sit down.
3. The Russian Sleep Experiment
Image: Skeptoid.com
This is one of those urban legends that we find ourselves really, really hoping that it’s not true but, as we’re reading it, we have a sneaking suspicion that there might be something to it. Stranger things have happened, of course, and it’s all based in something we’ve all felt at one point or another - like we would never sleep again.
The story details an experiment done by Russian scientists in the 1940s. It was supposedly done on political prisoners who were subjected to a toxic gas, keeping them awake for a target 30 days. Needless to say, they didn’t make it. Complaints turned into paranoia, which turned into screaming. By the time the experiment was 14 days in, they no longer wanted their freedom. On day 15, scientists discover that the test subjects were eating each other - and themselves. Still, they retained superhuman strength, fuelled by rage. Researchers who tried to save dying subjects reported they refused anaesthetic…and smiled as they were being operated on.
Brain waves flat lined, even though they were still, technically alive. Removal of the gas that was keeping them awake left them in a state of violent panic and finally, one was restrained enough that the researchers could force him to talk, and to tell them what he was.
Madness.
It’s not clear whether it’s the sleep deprivation that causes their madness, or if it’s their sleeplessness, if they’ve allowed something inside their heads. But we’ve all been there, laying awake at night, unable to get comfortable, unable to sleep, knowing that we’ll need to get up in the morning and face the day with gritty eyes and aching muscles.
Imagine that for night after night.
2. The Victim of the Beast
Image: Noel Fields, cc-nc-4.0
Sometimes, there’s a weird relationship between truth and the urban legend.
In the Salt Lake Cemetery, there’s a small, flat gravestone to Lilly E. Gray. Beneath her birth and death dates, there’s a simple inscription that no one’s been able to explain. It simply says, “Victim of the Beast 666.”
The connotations are…kind of clear. There’s some sort of connection to satanic rituals or devil worship, or someone believed she was a target. Right?
The gravestone says that Gray was buried in 1958, although the records even on that are up for dispute. There seems to be a bit of confusion on just who, exactly, she is, with records on even her basic information not quite matching. And no one seems to remember her, or know why the strange inscription is on her gravestone. Or why, for that matter, her husband is buried on the other side of the cemetery.
There have been a number of wild speculations, but it’s one of those cases that with more information, things just grow that much more weird. In 2009, a paranormal researcher uncovered a document from her husband to the Utah State Board of Pardons that…well, it’s weird. He demands an end to the “farce,” telling the board that he had never gone to court and that his “kidnapers” had been holding him in prison. His parents, the document states, “died of grief when kidnapers murdered my wife.”
Some people who have visited the grave say that they’ve encountered weird chills and bizarre incidents - like a car door suddenly slamming shut on a hand - while there. So was Lilly a victim of “that” beast…or of her husband, perhaps? Knowing participant or unwilling target?
We don’t know, but don’t step on her gravestone. That’s when things happen.
1. Snuff Film Evolution
Image: via Wikipedia
Sometimes, the legend comes first and it’s only made truth by what comes after.
There’s a couple things that make an official snuff film. In addition to it being the filming and broadcasting of an actual murder, it’s generally a murder that has to be thoroughly pre-planned and it’s a film that’s commercially available and produced for entertainment value. While there’s certainly YouTube videos out there that show deaths on camera, they’re not considered snuff films as they’re not marketed as anything but documentary or news.
For a long time, snuff films were the thing of urban legends. In the infancy of the internet, movies were made and videos were uploaded claiming to be real snuff films, but were ultimately disproven. One of the most commonly referenced was Snuff; the film was in pretty wide circulation in the 1970s, but it was ultimately proven - amid quite an uproar - that it was fake.
Truth can come from urban legends, though, and that finally happened with 2009’s 3 Guys 1 Hammer, which showed pretty graphic footage of two Russian teens going on a 21-person murder spree over 2 months.
Then, there came 2012’s 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick. The video, uploaded to a number of gore web sites, seemed to show a young man tied to a bed, stabbed with an ice pick, and then dismembered.
Some of the viewers tried reporting it to authorities, while others criticized his film-making technique and even the sound effects. When Canadian government officials received a gruesome package containing a severed hand and a severed foot belonging to the victim, they finally took it seriously.
While it’ll long be debated whether or not the 1 Lunatic of the above-mentioned video would have turned to murder if he didn’t have an audience on the internet, it’s an eerie, creepy reminder that just because something is an urban legend today, it might not be tomorrow.
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