David Avery
Freddie Mercury
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Nov 17, 2022 · Learn about the scary stories that have been told and retold for decades, from haunted houses to serial killers. Discover how urban legends have influenced movies, TV shows, games, and fiction tropes.
An urban legend, myth, or tale is a modern genre of folklore. It often consists of fictional stories associated with the macabre, superstitions, ghosts, demons, cryptids, extraterrestrials, creepypasta, and other fear generating narrative elements. Urban legends are often rooted in local history and popular culture .
Snopes.com is a website that investigates and debunks rumors, misinformation, and hoaxes. It covers topics such as news, politics, entertainment, and folklore, and provides references and sources for its claims.
- Candyman
- The Killer Calling from Inside The House
- The Goatman
- The Mothman
- “Humans Can Lick, Too”
- The Killer in The Backseat
- The Real Corpse on Display
- The Death of Life Cereal Spokesperson Mikey
- Rice Killing Birds
- The Wizard of Oz’s Dead Munchkin
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In 2021, director Nia DaCosta’s new vision of Candyman—the popular 1992 horror hitabout a vengeful spirit who is summoned to reality by saying his name five times—arrived in theaters. In one of the movie’s most terrifying scenes, the villain bursts through a medicine cabinet in the bathroom to attack his victim. While Candyman himself isn’t an urba...
For decades, stories have circulated about a babysitter home alone who receives harassing phone calls. When the call is finally traced by police, the babysitter is horrified to discover it’s coming from inside the house. While that exact scenario doesn’t seem to have ever been documented, there have been unsettling reports of babysitters being assa...
The Goatman was a purported half-man, half-goat fond of devouring dogs and attacking people in Prince George’s County in Maryland. While the Goatman had been whispered about for years, he got an explosion of publicity in 1971 after a reporter named Karen Hosler delivereda one-two punch lending credibility to his existence. In one Halloween article,...
No urban legend rundown is complete without mention of the Mothman, a strange creature who purportedly terrorized West Virginia in the 1960s. This winged menace was spotted numerous times, including by a grave digger and two couples sitting in a car in 1966. They described it as having bright red eyes and a massive wingspan 10 feet wide. When they ...
Not all tales of killers result in people dying. Sometimes, it’s the near-misses that prove to be effective stories. In one urban legend, a person wakes up in response to some strange noises. As they let their hand dangle at the bottom of the bed, they feela reassuring lick from their family pet. The next morning, the pet is found dead, and a note ...
Another near-miss urban legend involves a driver who is seemingly harassed by a car following hers. When she finally stops, it turns out the other driver was trying to warn her of a killer hiding in the back seat. It’s actually hard for murderers to try and hitch a ride in a back seat without being seen, but this story does have some basis in reali...
Ever hear the one about the haunted house that left a real corpse on display? You’re probably not going to find a dead body at your local haunt, but if you were a crew member on The Six Million Dollar Man in 1976, you would have realized this was no myth. A man working on the show was setting up a sequence at a funhouse at the Nu-Pike Amusement Par...
The Six Million Dollar Man was a big hit in the 1970s, and so was Mikey, the star of the Life cereal commercials. At some point, word spread that Mikey had succumbed to a dangerous combination of soda and the effervescent candy Pop Rocks. The rumor grew so widespread that in 1979 the mother of child actor John Gilchrist, who played Mikey, got a con...
For some reason, people just can’t get enough of urban legends about food causing living creatures to explode. For years, couples planning their wedding have been warned about not throwing riceat the ceremony because birds will be tempted to eat it, causing them to blow up. That can’t actually happen. Rice, whether it’s cooked or uncooked, poses no...
Have you ever heard about the munchkin who was believed to have taken his own life on the set of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz? People who watched the movie would swear they could see a shadowy figure as Dorothy and her new friends stroll along the Yellow Brick Road. There is something a little off in the background, but it’s not a dead munchkin. Because...
Learn how some of the most popular urban legends, such as Candyman, the Killer in the Backseat, and the Goatman, came to be. Discover the facts and fiction behind these modern folktales that have terrified and entertained generations.
- The truth behind Mr. Rogers. A secret many have been dying to know: was Mr. Rogers, host of the children’s show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” actually a U.S. Marine - or maybe a Navy SEAL?
- There are bodies buried in Hoover Dam. This is one urban legend that just won’t die. While there were many fatalities involved in the making of Hoover Dam, zero involved workers slipping into the mix and being covered up with concrete.
- Pools will turn red if you pee in them. We all heard this one as kids: you can’t pee in the pool because there’s a special chemical that turns the water around you red...
- Wedding rice makes birds explode. No one is quite sure where this particular urban legend originated, but there is nevertheless the pervasive fear that if birds consume rice they explode.
Learn about urban legends, stories that many people believe to be true but that are not true, and how they reflect modern society. Explore the origins, characteristics, themes, and adaptations of urban legends in folklore, literature, and media.
Urban legends (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not.
