[Guest]

One example is the story of a woman killed by spiders nesting in her elaborate hairdo, others include homeless people falling asleep in storm drains and being washed out to sea!

[itachi-san]

Don't forget the killer at makeout point. Also my amazing ESP: I'm foreseeing this being moved to Others...

[Guest]

Has anyone seen my kidney? I just put it down for a second, and now its gone.

[Guest]

itachi could you please explain the story =p

dont no much and i thought it would be interesting for me and others to learn some new ones (wikipedia gave me 3 =O and they sucked!)

and also johnclark what has that got to do unless its the legend about people who anaesthise you and steal your kidneys or w/e.

[Guest]

itachi could you please explain the story =p

dont no much and i thought it would be interesting for me and others to learn some new ones (wikipedia gave me 3 =O and they sucked!)

and also johnclark what has that got to do unless its the legend about people who anaesthise you and steal your kidneys or w/e.

it has everything to do the the kidney steeling urban legend, and you knew that.

[Guest]

Off to "Others".

[itachi-san]

Off to "Others".

Maybe now you get my story At least half of it.

[Guest]

Maybe now you get my story At least half of it.

Got all of it.

When I was a kid, in the dark ages before the internet, where any story could be confirmed true or false on web sites like Snopes, I was told about the the killer at makeout point (the one with the hook, right?) by my best friends mother. She told it to us as if it had happened to her. Adults used to really like to scare the hell out of us back then.

Then when I was a little older, maybe about 14, I was watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson one night and he had this guy Jan Harold Brunvand on. He was on to promote a book about urban legends and explained what they were. This was the first time I heard of the term. He gave a few examples that night and I was like "wow, the lady downstairs told us that story; I thought it was real!" He mentioned that they're usually told as if they happened to a friend of a friend (which he uses the shorthand FOF for).

Several years after that, I told my wife about urban legends and she bought me a book by Jan Harold Brunvand; he authored several books on urban legends since then and I've got several on my bookshelf. They're great to read because you're bound to come across at least a few that you'll remember hearing before and never have given a second thought that a little story you were told as if it happened to a freind of a friend has actually been heard by millions of people.

Two that I read from his book series that I never would have guessed were well known legends:

My older sister was cashiering at the local supermarket as a teenager. She came home one night and told us that a friend of one of the other cashiers had what looked like an average pimple on her face. While looking in her bathroom mirror, she proceeds to pop that sucker. As she pops it, hundreds of baby spiders run out all over her face and the shock of witnessing this was so severe, she can't function normally and is locked up in an insane asylum . It turns out that the pimple was actually the location of where a momma spider stored her eggs. Laughed out loud when I read that in the book.

Another was told around the lunch table when I was an auto mechanic at a Ford dealership many years ago. One of the senior mechanics was telling us how a mechanic he knew couldn't diagnose where a noise was coming from on a customer's car. After spending hours looking for loose parts, etc. he takes the transmission pan off and there is a bolt hanging from a tied wire with a note attached. He pulls of the note and it reads "How long did it take you to find this, ***hole?" Presumably this was left by a disgruntled assembly plant worker.

This web page has some that I grew up hearing since they're about NJ. Scroll down to Totowa (a town I grew up near). The ones called Annie's road and Totowa road were always told as the same story. That one also is in one of Brunvand's books. It turns out that the one about Heartbeat Rd. could be explained by a sewer pump. At least that's what I read in an issue of Weird NJ. Weird NJ is a cool magazine that comes out a few times a year that lists weird places to visit and tells of local legends. They've branched out to publish mags for other states now too.

Two stories I remember hearing as a kid in the 70s from other kids was that Mikey from the Life cereal commercial died because his stomach blew up because he ate Pop Rocks and soda at the same time and that the reason Bubble Yum bubble gum was so soft was because they contained spider eggs. As kids, not only did we believe these stories, we continued to chew Bubble Yum and risk death by seeing who would have the guts to take the biggest swig of soda followed by Pop Rocks. Go figure.

[Guest]

Found this on Snopes

Claim: Discount chain threatens to bar a family from shopping at one of its stores due to the husband's pranking.

Status: False.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006]

Dear Mrs. Samples:

Over the past six months, your husband, Royse Samples has been causing quite a commotion in our Lawton store. We cannot tolerate this type of behavior and, as a result, will ban your entire family from shopping in any of our stores if even one more incident occurs. We have documented all incidents on our video surveillance equipment.

Three of our clerks are currently attending counseling from the trouble your husband has caused. All complaints against Mr. Samples have been compiled and are listed below.

Mr. Wally Brown

President and CEO

WalMart Complaint Department

MEMO Re: Mr. Bill Fenton — Complaints — Things Mr. Royse Samples has done while his wife was shopping:

1. November 15, 2005: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. November 23, 2005: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. December 10, 2005: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the rest rooms.

4. December 23, 2005: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official tone, "Code 3 in housewares!" ..... and watched what happened.

5. January 10, 2006: Went to the Service Desk and asked to put a bag of M&Ms on lay-away.

6. January 23, 2006: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. Feburary 15, 2006: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he'd invite them in if they'd bring pillows from the bedding department.

8. March 5, 2006: When a clerk asked if she could help him, he threw himself down on the floor, began to cry and wailed, "Why can't you people just leave me alone?'

9. March 26, 2006: Looked right into the security camera; used it as a mirror, and picked his nose.

10. April 2, 2006: While handling guns in the hunting department, asked the clerk if he knows where the antidepressants are.

11. April 15, 2006: Darted around the store, looking around suspiciously while loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.

12. April 26, 2006: In the auto department, practiced his "Madonna look" using different size funnels.

13. May 1, 2006: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled, "PICK ME! — PICK ME!"

14. May 12, 2006: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed the fetal position and screamed, "NO! NO! Sheila! It's those voices again!!!!"

And last, but not least, just today....

15. May 16, 2006: Went into a fitting room, shut the door and waited a while; then yelled very loudly, "Hey, Somebody! I need some toilet paper in here!"

Variations:

The name of the unruly shopper changes from telling to telling: Tennye Kimbrough, Bill Fenton, Royse Samples, Joe Cozad, Mr. Nelson, Lee Price, C. Gutierrez, or Bill Wargo.

The low-end retailer that bars the prankster also changes: Wal-Mart, Target, or Kmart.

Origins: In May 2006 the snopes.com inbox began receiving copies of this purported letter from a store to the spouse of an errant shopper. The name of the fellow (and in one case, gal) decried by the merchant changed from letter to letter, and in some versions the retailers announced they were barring the family from the premises (as opposed to merely threatening to ban them), yet the structure of the missive was consistently the same: the letter was always addressed to the spouse of the miscreant (rather than the delinquent himself), the offenses enumerated in a numbered list.

It's not a real letter. It's an updating of an older piece of Internet humor that goes back to at least 1997, variously titled "Things to do in WalMart while you shop," "How to handle stress," and "While waiting for your wife at Wal-Mart":

Things to do at Wal-Mart while your family is taking forever to finish shopping.

1. Set all the alarm clocks to go off at 10 minute intervals

2. Make a trail of orange juice on the floor to the restrooms.

3. Walk up to an employee and tell him/her in an official tone,"I think we have a code 3 in housewares" and see what happens.

4. Turn all the radios to a polka station, then turn them all off and turn the volumes to 10.

5. Challenge other customers to a duel with tubes of gift wrap.

6. Put m&m's on layaway

7. Move "CAUTION WET FLOOR" signs to carpet areas.

8. Set up a tent in the camping department; tell others you'll only invite them if they bring pillows from the bedding department.

9. When someone asks if they can help you, begin to cry and ask "Why won't you people leave me alone?"

10. Look right into the security camera and use it as a mirror while you pick your nose.

11. Take up an entire aisle in toys by setting up a full scale battlefield with G.I. Joe and the X-Men.

12. Ask other customers if they have any Grey Poupon.

13. While handling guns in the hunting department ask the clerk if he knows where the anti-depressants are.

14. Switch signs on the men's and women's bathrooms.

15. Dart around suspiciously while humming the theme from "Mission Impossible".

16. Set up a "Valet Parking" sign out front.

17. In the auto department, practice your Madonna look using different size funnels.

18. Hide in the clothing rack and when people browse through say "PICK ME! PICK ME!".

19. When an announcement comes over the loud speaker assume the fetal position and scream "NO! NO! It's those voices again".

20. Go to the food court, get a soft drink, tell them you don't get out much and would they put one of those little umbrellas in it.

21. Go into the fitting room and yell real loud...."Hey we're out of toilet paper in here!"

In May 2006, someone thought to update that earlier humor piece by changing it from a recommendation of future acts (things a bored person could do when forced to tag along on someone else's shopping expedition) to a recounting of past events (things someone actually had done) through expanding it into a letter. That reformatting also worked to transform a list of suggestions that a person with a loopy sense of humor might think to act upon into a comment on the effects of retirement. Some of the titles the later version has been christened with include "The Perils of Retirement" and "Retired Husbands," names that position the item as an observation of the "joys" visited upon the spouse of a newly-retired husband — a man whose previous outlet for his vip and vim (i.e., his job) is no longer there for him, leaving him bored and perpetually underfoot.

Husbands newly departed from the workforce are popularly perceived as handling the initial transition period in a manner akin to schoolchildren let out for summer vacation, with much rowdiness, many beginnings of new projects (quickly abandoned in half-finished states), and the failure to understand that their wives continue to have other demands upon their time and can't drop everything to tend to them whenever they start to feel restless or lonely. As the rueful comment attributed to many wives who have endured this phase of their husbands' lives expresses it: "I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch."

Wives are featured prominently here in that the retailer's letter threatening to ban the family is addressed not to the merrymaker himself, but to the person presumed to be responsible for his behavior: namely, the woman he married. (Although we did happen upon one variation where the letter was addressed to the husband of a female prankster, it was practically lost in the sea of "letter to the wife" versions and so should be viewed as a outlier.) By addressing the letter to the wife, the writer underscores the message that the husband is acting like an out-of-control child and also introduces a new message, that the wife is failing in her duty by not imposing order upon her spouse. Western society still commonly views the woman in a marriage as the civilizing force in that social unit and so regards shortfalls in a husband's behavior as a failure on the wife's part.

Finally, there is the nature of the mercantile establishment named in the piece: it is invariably one of the lower-end retailers. This imparts to the story the presumed indignity of the family's being banned from one of the least prestigious chain stores (leaving readers wondering which shops would therefore allow them through their doors). Yet there is another element to the pairing of discount stores with this tale: the presumption that standards for deportment are lower in venues where prices are lower; that it is somehow permissible (or at least more excusable) to treat these establishments and their employees badly.

[onetruth]

I know the spider one is a common urban legend, but I actually do know someone (LOL) who had a bot fly lay eggs. It was on his head, though, and he thought he had a tumor. I was looking up info to post on here about bot flies so you'd all believe me, but I'm eating, and apparently I'm a wee bit sensitive when I see insect larvae crawling out of someone's body.

How about the Alka Seltzer and seagulls one?

[Guest]

I know the spider one is a common urban legend, but I actually do know someone (LOL) who had a bot fly lay eggs.

Yeah, that happens. I spent many years as a radiographer in the ER of an inner city hospital and I've seen a few other things living under the skin. Actually, I can tell some stories that you probably would think I made up.

How about the Alka Seltzer and seagulls one?

Declared false by Snopes.

[Guest]

Here is one for you BRAINS

[Guest]

Here's a link to the LADD School. It's an used-to-be abandoned insane asylm in Rhode Island (where I live) which has many myths and ledgends surronding it. (I've been there with friends when it was abandoned. scaryyyyyyy). These stories will blow your mind. Read the one about the skeloten closet...my fav.

The LADD School

TRUE STORY: My scoutmaster for boyscouts was the guy who surveyed the property for development. He and his partner went into the main building and after a while they found an insane guy who still lived there, AFTER IT WAS ABANDONED!!!!!

Edited May 8, 2008 by giterdone

[Guest]

Here's a link to the LADD School. It's an used-to-be abandoned insane asylm in Rhode Island (where I live)

Explains a lot

Now it's not abandoned

And still for the insane

[Guest]

Here is a true story someone found regarding exams at Cambridge University. It seems that during an examination one day a bright young student popped up and asked the proctor to bring him Cakes and Ale. The following dialog ensued:

Proctor: I beg your pardon?

Student: Sir, I request that you bring me Cakes and Ale.

Proctor: Sorry, no.

Student: Sir, I really must insist. I request and require that you bring me Cakes and Ale.

At this point, the student produced a copy of the four hundred year old Laws of Cambridge, written in Latin and still nominally in effect, and pointed to the section which read (rough translation from the Latin):

"Gentlemen sitting examinations may request and require Cakes and Ale."

Pepsi and hamburgers were judged the modern equivalent, and the student sat there, writing his examination and happily slurping away.

Three weeks later the student was fined five pounds for not wearing a sword to the examination

[Guest]

A marble gravestone in an old deserted cemetery in West Virginia was the legend trip site for a particular group of young adults in the vicinity. The marble statue was of a seated lady, her hands outstretched to all that pass by the resting place. The legend stated that the woman in the grave had died of a broken heart when jilted by her fiancé. The legend trip was an initiation rite: new members had to spend the night sitting in the statue's lap. But the last time anyone tried this, the young woman who sat in the statue's lap met with a tragedy. The difference, you see, was that the young woman was a direct descendant of the fiancé!

The next morning the young girl was discovered, still sitting in the statue's lap. She was dead. On her body were found marks as though she had been held in a superhuman clutch. Perhaps the seated lady had gained revenge.

[Guest]

Never believe a story that begins: "Let me tell you something which really, truly, happened to a friend of a friend." It will almost certainly be an urban myth. And yet there is something irresistible about such stories, because there is always just that faint possibility that they might contain a seedling of truth.

Now, let me tell you something which really, truly happened to a friend of a friend, last Christmas. Her friend is a busy advertising executive and ran out of time to buy presents for family and close friends. So instead she decided to enclose some rather generous cheques with her Christmas cards, scribbling the message: "Have a lovely Christmas but, if you don't mind, buy your own present this year!"

A little impersonal, but actually fairly practical, she thought. Except that a week or so into January, having not received the customary thank-yous from her relatives and friends, she found all the cheques in a drawer. In the rush, she had neglected to enclose them.

[onetruth]

Here are some from my homeland.

Haunted CA Hotspots

I remember some of these stories going around when I was in elementary school.

[Guest]

One afternoon, a couple was traveling on the road when all of a sudden at a far distance they saw a woman in the middle of the road asking them to stop.

The wife told her husband to keep on driving because it might be too dangerous, but the husband decided to pass by slowly so he wouldn't stay with the doubt on his mind of what might have happened and the chances of anyone being hurt. As they got closer, they noticed a woman with cuts and bruises on her face as well as on her arms. They then decide to stop and see if they could be of any help.

The cut and bruised woman was begging for help telling them that she had been in a car accident and that her husband and son, a new born baby, were still inside the car which was in a deep ditch. She told them that the husband was already dead but that her baby seemed to still be alive.

The husband that was traveling decided to get down and try to rescue the baby and he asked the hurt woman to stay with his wife inside the their car. When he got down he noticed two people in the front seats of the car but he didn't pay any importance to it and took out the baby quickly and got up to take the baby to it's mother. When he got up, he didn't see the mother anywhere so he asked his wife where she had gone. She told him that the woman followed him back to the crashed car.

When the man decided to go look for the woman, he noticed that clearly the two people in the front seats were dead; a woman and a man with both their seatbelts on. When he looked closer, he noticed that it was the exact same woman that was begging them for help in the begining.

Do you think that it was a miracle of God?

The Baby now lives with family members and he will live to tell the story.

If you believe in the Almighty and that miracles like these can truly happen, send this to your friends. If you don't send it, nothing will happen, only that the some people won't be able to know of the greatness of the Lord.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Collected on the Internet, 2002]

A drunk man in an Oldsmobile,

they said, had run the light

that caused the six-car pileup

on 109 that night.

When broken bodies lay about

and blood was everywhere,

the sirens screamed out elegies

for death was in the air.

A mother, trapped inside her car,

was heard above the noise;

her plaintive plea near split the air:

"Oh, God, please spare my boys!"

She fought to loose her pinioned hands;

she struggled to get free,

but mangled metal held her fast

in grim captivity.

Her frightened eyes then focused

on where the back seat once had been,

but all she saw was broken glass and

two children's seats crushed in.

Her twins were nowhere to be seen;

she did not hear them cry,

and then she prayed they'd been thrown free,

"Oh, God, don't let them die!"

Then firemen came and cut her loose,

but when they searched the back,

they found therein no little boys,

but the seat belts were intact.

They thought the woman had gone mad

and was traveling alone,

but when they turned to question her,

they discovered she was gone.

Policemen saw her running wild

and screaming above the noise

in beseeching supplication,

Please help me find my boys!

They're four years old and wear blue shirts;

their jeans are blue to match."

One cop spoke up, "They're in my car,

and they don't have a scratch.

They said their daddy put them there

and gave them each a cone,

then told them both to wait for Mom

to come and take them home.

I've searched the area high and low,

but I can't find their dad.

He must have fled the scene,

I guess, and that is very bad."

The mother hugged the twins and said,

while wiping at a tear,

"He could not flee the scene,

you see, for he's been dead a year."

The cop just looked confused and asked,

"Now, how can that be true?"

The boys said, "Mommy, Daddy came

and left a kiss for you.

He told us not to worry

and that you would be all right,

and then he put us in this car with

the pretty, flashing light.

We wanted him to stay with us,

because we miss him so,

but Mommy, he just hugged us tight

and said he had to go.

He said someday we'd understand

and told us not to fuss,

and he said to tell you, Mommy,

he's watching over us."

The mother knew without a doubt

that what they spoke was true,

for she recalled their dad's last words,

"I will watch over you."

The firemen's notes could not explain

the twisted, mangled car,

and how the three of them escaped

without a single scar.

But on the cop's report was scribed,

in print so very fine,

An angel walked the beat tonight

on Highway 109.

By Ruth Gillis

Copyright � 1999 Ruth Gillis

Ruth's House of Poetry

[Guest]

Once upon a time there was a young trapper named Peter Dobley, who lived alone except for his huge, part-wolf sled dog Prince.

Eventually Peter married, but his wife died soon after giving birth to his son. From then on it fell to Prince to guard the baby while his master was out trapping.

One day, caught in a blizzard, Peter was hours late returning home. Arriving, he found the cabin door half open. A terrible sight awaited him inside . . . his son was gone and the crib stained with blood!

As Peter stood rooted in horror, Prince crept from under the bed, his muzzle was also red with blood and he seemed to avoid his master's gaze. With a cry, Peter raised his axe and struck with all his strength, burying it in the dog's massive head.

Following the thoughtless act, Peter stepped around to the other side of the bed and found his son, alive and unharmed. He also found a dead timber wolf clenching a piece of Prince's bloody fur in his teeth.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Aesop] A farmer who had gone into his field to mend a gap in one of his fences, found at his return the cradle in which he had left his only child asleep turned upside down, the clothes all torn and bloody, and his dog lying near it, besmeared also with blood. Thinking that the animal had destroyed his child, he instantly dashed out his brains with the hatchet in his hand. When turning up the cradle, he found his child unhurt, and an enormous serpent lying dead on the floor, killed by that faithful dog whose courage and fidelity in preserving the life of his son deserved another kind of reward.

[Guest]

I have heard for YEARS about a supposed "Haunted Hospital" here in Ohio.

Not actually haunted, but a haunted house attraction set in a hospital. Supposedly it's very scary and if you can make it through all the floors you get your money back. And no one ever makes it all the way through.

I've heard this story from MANY people, but NO ONE knows exactly where it is. I've heard Dayton, OH Columbus, OH even KY.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Collected on the Internet, 1998]

The first time I heard this was in middle school in the suburbs of Detroit, MI. There was supposedly a huge "haunted house set up in a 5 story abandoned building in downtown Detroit. The admission was around $25.00 but you could get it back in $5.00 increments with each level you completed. The house was supposed to have the scarriest attractions so no one could complete it. Some of these included: live snakes, spiders, and insects. Secret doors, dropaway floor slides etc. No exact location of the house was ever given. Recently I heard the story again at college in Austin, Texas. On Halloween two of my friends were going to Dallas to try and find the 5 story haunted house but I told them it was an urban legend.

[Guest]

A woman whose husband is at the Pacific Front [during World War II] is bathing her two small children upstairs when the doorbell rings. Hurrying down the steps to answer the door, she trips on a toy and falls to the bottom, breaking her neck.

At the door is a military envoy, sent to inform her that her husband was killed in action. When authorities enter the house to check on her, they find the woman dead in the hallway and both children drowned in the bathtub.

[Guest]

i remember one, only really applies to us in UK but i think it is actually true so here we go:

There used to be a Frosties advert (a cereal, dont know if you get it outside UK or not) and there was this teenage boy dancing about jumping between different scenes singing a song (#They're gonna taste great! They're gonna taste great! i can hear the sound of Frosties hittin' my plate!#) and at the end was marching with loads of kids, then the camera zooms out and the teenage kid comes up with the camera and joins tony the tiger. its awesome but anyway, the rumour is that kid was bullied and taunted by people coming up to him and singing it (and other "ruder" versions) to him and eventually he committed suicide, whether its true or not i don't know but its an interesting UL!

For those who dont know wat i mean UL = Urban Legend, now im using shorthand!