What Urban Legends do you remember from childhood?

[Palomiino]

The ones that stick in my mind are;

Supermodels harbour tapeworms as a way to keep their weight down.

Prince had a rib removed so he could give himself oral.

Various iterations of terrorist plots (IRA in the 80s) where an Irish chap told someone you know not to go to a particular shopping centre on a certain date because there was going to be a terrorist attack.

A woman driving her car was being stalked by another driver who was actually trying to warn her about an assailant on her back seat.

yes recognise so many of these and like other PPs it was Marilyn Manson who had his ‘ribs removed’ in the version I know. So funny how these specific rumours spread with no social media.

Others ive heard different variations of-
man getting a Chinese takeaway in local town, takeaway is next door to a vet. gets something stuck in tooth which is found by dentist to be a microchip for a pet dog/cat.

people in different small towns (including one I lived in) insisting Maxine carr lives locally under her new identity and works in the Asda/greggs/morrisons

😯
I was told this in the early 90s
Freaky .

@Franxi @NancyJoan

I worked as a lifeguard at a water park in the mid-2000s and one of the jobs before we opened was to climb up the slides and check the joins for razor blades 😬.

Love this thread.

I went to a girls boarding school in my teens, and the main boarding house, was some type of converted big manor. Anyway, between the backdrop of this massive old house, and the constant influx, of new (young, and therefore very gullible) boarders, at least once a year, made for the creation of some terrifying urban legends.
This was also, only the early days of internet (…so no one could do a quick Google to find out if a story was made-up bollocks or not!).
It was only after I’d done my A levels, and left, that it finally dawned on me how unlikely it was for an old house (and it wasn’t that old - think around 1800s), to have multiple unsolved, historical murders, and massacres😂

Peethebeds in Scotland

The one about a young couple who got stuck together as the woman had a spasm in her vag and they had to be taken to hospital to be freed.

My Aunties next door neighbour's cousins friend had this happen to her.....
The couple were having a dress up night as the kids were at Gran's.

So he was Superman and she was Lois Lane tied to the bed needing rescued. So he climbed on top of the wardrobe to jump and "rescue her". Unfortunately the wardrobe collapsed, trapping him underneath and breaking his leg. It was morning before someone heard their cries for help and a Fire Engine arrived and the guys had to break the door down to help them get free.

If you sit on the drain at the bottom of a swimming pool it could kill you by pulling your guts out through your ass

When I worked in Bradford in the late 70s/early 80s, there were always rumours that the local curry houses were using stray cats and dogs in their curries. I never cared - I had many amazingly tasty and cheap meals and didn’t give it a thought!
I also heard the semen in the stomach story, but it was Elton John rather than Marc Almond.

This is the plot of a short story called Guts by Chuck Palahniuk.

I hated secondary school. I was told that you would definitely have your head flushed down the toilet. Luckily it didn’t happen to me, but lived in fear of that for many years!

Fairly recently, a woman in the US was actually sent to prison for purposely leaving her baby in a bouncy chair whilst she went on holiday for several days. The poor baby passed away :(

The Russian spy one is good - I’ve not heard that one before!

A young woman in the UK left her two year old for a weekend to go clubbing and the child died. Definitely not an urban myth and she is now in prison.
I heard it was Prince with the rib removed and how sitting on a hot radiator at school caused piles.

I remember seeing photos in the papers of people that had combusted. They didn’t look fake to me.

Re: spontaneous human combustion - those people did really die but science has concluded (luckily) that it’s impossible for a human to just burst into flames. So the poor people who died had actually done something like dropped a match or a cigarette and their body burned like a candle. This also explains why the people involved were usually old and alone - someone who had people around would be able to get help before it happened.

Not urban legend but I thought I’d spontaneously combust at some point!! But blame the Reader’s Digest ‘Mysteries of the Unexplained’.

Also swallowing gum could stuck in your stomach and eating an apple core you could grow apples. Eating crusts makes your hair curly!

Carrots make you see in the dark ! I think that was a big thing during the war years to encourage ‘ grow your own ‘ and I’ve read since that the vitamins in carrots can help eye sight , so probably true.

When lakeside first opened, the man in the back seat of the car with the rope and so on was rife ! It was a friend of a friend who was a policeman or whatever who told the story and it soon became the truth that they targeted the car parks for those leaving work late .

It was sipposed to beca abit of misdirection about how pilots cpuld see in the dark as well (as RADAR was classified)

Swans can break your arm.

Another one.
KFC were using rats instead of chickens in their bargain buckets!

Another one - pampas grass meant you were a swinger (maybe teens, not childhood). My friend’s parents had it but they def weren’t the swinging type!

And Eastenders! Phil flushed Ian’s head down the bog 😂

The local kebab shop closed in town and the rumour was that rats were being used as meat :(
The local shops near my parents in the 90s, the post office closed suddenly overnight and the locals said it was because of fraud. Knowing what we know now, it was probably a victim of the post office scandal ! It never reopened ( far as I know)

That has happened and caused serious injuries and fatalities (and changes to regulations).

If you dream you are falling, and don't wake up, you die in your sleep.
If you swallowed a pip, the fruit tree could grow inside of you.
Gurning whist the wind changed would make your face stay in that position.
And I was also terrified of spontaneous human combustion.

I haven’t seen the one about litter, but I have seen the one about symbols being painted or chalked on the ground, where the symbols look like laundry care symbols; and I have seen it being reported seriously. I’m not sure I believe it.