Urban Legends.

[LordOfThe5Rings]

I know I've been hogging the boards the last few days, but I don't care :P Just been curious on other peoples opinions on things.

I didn't know where to put this, so I apologise if it's in the wrong category.

I was wondering what everyones favourite Urban Legend/Cautionary Tale was. I have been fascinated in them for pretty much forever, due to so many meanings and of course expressing the nations fears.

So what are your favourites? Feel free to share the UL with us! :)

That was a storyline in Six Feet Under, ages ago. V funny.

Mike I must have done well to avoid them so far. I will not search out more.

Bertie I know it is crazy to be scared of something that isn't true. I am obviously wierd.

I don't think it's weird to be scared by them. These stories are hard-wired to tap into our primal fears. They're designed to creep us out because, with our knowledge or lack of knowledge of the world we can easily believe something like that happening.

Enjoying these! not shitting myself at all

Apparently the hairy handed hitchhiker story is literally hundreds of years old. Late 1700s first appearance.

The one about the woman hitchhiker I remember reading in a short story years ago. It was called Mamie or Maimie?

With my filthy mind I was going to offer, as an example of an urban myth, that one about semen being good for the complexion

The ones that were popular when I was at school were the rats head deep fried into a piece of KFC and the girl who buys a new skirt from Chelsea Girl and gets a rash around her waist. She complains to someone who opens the waistband to find it full of fleas

Its the stickmen threads that scare the bejesus out of me, even though I know they are ridiculous.

Stickmen?

The one I liked as a teenager was the one about the boarding school in the middle of nowhere. It's the half term before Christmas and lots of the girls have gone home, leaving a handful at school. They all decide to sleep in one dorm so the heating can be switched off in the others. One evening they're all telling ghost stories and scaring the living daylights out of each other. Eventually they all fall asleep.

One girl wakes in the middle of the night and needs the loo. The ghost stories have freaked her out so she hangs on as long as she can. Eventually she has to go. She walks down the dark corridor to the loo and sits down. While she's in there, she hears a bang and some scuffling. Then it's quiet again. She's terrified and stays in the cubicle. Some time later she hears a scratching outside the door. She stays silent and sits on the loo seat and lifts up her legs so no one from the outside can see her in there. She stays there all night.

As it's getting light she hears some other noises. People walking around, talking, radio chatter etc. Eventually there's a knock at the cubicle door and a man asking "is there anyone in there?" As the voice is reassuringly official sounding the girl opens the door and explains she got frightened in the night. The police man asks her to follow him and not look anywhere around her as they walk out, just look at the floor. As she's walking out the girl can't bear it and sneaks a peak... the corridor to the dorm is full of bodies, her friends all butchered to death. Someone had broken in to the school in the night and systematically slaughtered all the teachers and pupils. The scratching she heard was the last remaining child alive who was trying to warn her when she was dragged off by the killer.

kungfu I always skim over the stickman stories I have no idea why they freak me out so much.

what are the stickman stories? Go on, scare me, I'm treble 'ard me

me too whatkungfuthat there is a really long thread on digital spy about freaky things and someone posted a photo of a stickman thing. completely freaked me out!

even though i know it was fake (tries to convince self)

sscroll down for stickmen.

ooh, linky to thread?

Still don't get the grandma in Mexico one & don't know what the stickmen are about. Heard most of the other ones & even though I know they're not true some of them still make me shudder, I think it's because some of them could happen.

*Now for the really creepy one.

Eastern Air Lines flight 401 went down in the everglades. It crashed because the flight engineer, pilot and copilot were all trying to change a lightbulb.

The plane was damaged but many parts were salvaged and after being inspected by Federal Air Investigation were returned to Eastern Airlines. The airline used the parts as spares on its other Tristar planes.

The captain and flight attendent were killed, but that didn't stop them appearing on other tristars, telling crew to "Watch out for fire on this plane", "You don't need to do the pre flight check, I've already done it", as well as issuing warning the engineer fixed an oven in the gally and the captain sat next to an Eastern Airlines executive.*

the ghosts of flight 401 were seen by trained professional crew, were well
documented, and stopped when the airline removed all the recycled parts.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_401

Sorry, but the stickmen make me laugh :o I was thinking like the twig thingys in The Blair Witch Project They were freaky!

Elizabeth: bloody hell, I didn't know the semen thing was an urban myth. Mind you, my skin looks pretty good

How could I forget my friend who got a burger from KFC and when he bit into it a big chicken tumour burst and pus ran down his chin :o

The flight 401 legends are true. Theres a book called the ghost of
Flight 401. Written by actual personnel. It's out o print but sometimes pops up on amazon. I stupidly lent mine out years ago.

Nan a photo you say?

Glad the granny one is sorted now.

What is the stickmen stories?

too wimpy to Google

digital spy thread Creepy! Sorry it's really long but there's some really freaky stuff in there!

This is true as it didn't happen to a friend of a friend, it was on the local news and was why the KFC shut down [wont mention the place but put me off KFC for a while].

Someone actually found a dirty bloody bandage in with a chicken piece meal, you know the ones with like 8 pieces in? The police checked it and it was human blood, most likely from someone whom cut their finger or something but ick!

Also was at a McD's there a guy found hairs in his burger

Where was the granny one sorted? The one explanation didn't really explain anything in my opinion.

The stickman does creep me out it's the part about "he only exists when people think about him" that's wrong.

Other than that, things which aren't real don't worry me in the slightest.

The granny story was apparently two stories mixed up, so that's why it didn't make sense.