Category: Urban Legends
Highgate Cemetery – London
London’s Highgate Cemetery offers some of the finest funerary architecture in England. The cemetery was first opened in 1839 by a private company hoping to turn it into a profit and became one of London’s most high profile places to be buried. By the mid-20th century, the idea of a for-profit cemetery had lost its luster and Highgate was largely left abandoned, with nature reclaiming much of the land. Now, you might imagine ghosts would be […]
Snake Island – Brazil
No humans are allowed on Snake Island and with good reason. There’s about one deadly snake per square foot on it. About 25 miles off the coast of Brazil, there is an island where no local would ever dare tread. Legend has it that the last fisherman who strayed too close to its shores was found days later adrift in his own boat, lifeless in a pool of blood. The mysterious island is known as […]
Joe Ball “The Alligator Man”
Joseph D. Ball (January 7, 1896 – September 24, 1938) was an American serial killer, sometimes referred to as “The Alligator Man”, the “Butcher of Elmendorf” and the “Bluebeard of South Texas”. He is known to have killed two and is said to have killed as many as 20 women in the 1930s. His existence was long believed to be apocryphal, but he is a familiar figure in Texas folklore. His great-great grandfather was John Hart Crenshaw, the notorious illegal slave trader, kidnapper, and illegal slave breeder in Gallatin County, […]
Slaughterhouse Canyon – Kingman AZ
Legend has it that during the 1800s, a family lived down in the bottoms of Slaughterhouse Canyon. Times were hard and the father would regularly leave for weeks at a time in search of food, and possibly even gold; anything to keep the family fed and clothed. You can probably guess the first part of this tragic story: one time he left, and he never returned. Meanwhile, his wife and children were left alone in […]
Richard Parker Incident
While other cases of cannibalism are all borne out of necessity, they don’t have strong evidence that a murder preceded the flesh consumption. But the 1884 story of the Mignonette, a ship sailing from England to Australia, leaves no doubt: Death did not come naturally to the victim. About two months into the trip, the Mignonette sank and four crew members (including a 17-year-old named Richard Parker who managed to grab a couple tins of […]
Skinwalker Ranch
Skinwalker Ranch, also known as Sherman Ranch, is a property located on approximately 512 acres (2.072km²) southeast of Ballard, Utah that is allegedly the site of paranormal and UFO-related activities. Its name is taken from the skin-walker of Navajo legend concerning malevolent witches. Claims about the ranch first appeared in the Salt Lake City, UtahDeseret News, and later in the alternative weekly Las Vegas Mercury as a series of articles by journalist George Knapp. These […]
Nightmare Death
In CHICAGO Since April, 1983, at least 130 Southeast Asian refugees have left this world in essentially the same way. They cried out in their sleep. And then they died. Medical authorities call this Asian Death Syndrome. The refugees have various names for it, one of them being Night Terror. “In the Philippines, it’s called bangungut, in Japan pokkuri, in Thailand something else,” says Dr. Robert Kirschner. “But it all roughly translates as the same […]
