Urban legends — often horrifying stories people claim to have actually happened — are told all over the world. It’s generally believed that most urban legends are made up, which would be comforting if that didn’t suggest that some of them are real. And if even one of these spine-tingling stories happened for real, that’d mean we live in a very, very, very scary world.
Over on Quora, people are sharing the disturbing urban legends that have lived rent free in their heads for years. Here are some of the most chilling:
1.“A few years ago, a wealthy couple with two young children lived in a large house in Newport Beach, California. After taking care of their kids all week, the couple decided they needed a break, so they booked a table for dinner at a nice restaurant, then arranged for a teenage girl they knew to babysit the children.”
“When the babysitter arrived, the parents told her to fix supper for the kids and put them to bed.
‘After that, you can just watch TV and help yourself to anything in the fridge,’ the father said.
‘And if you wouldn’t mind,’ added the mother, ‘could you watch TV in our bedroom? The kids have been having nightmares recently, so if you hear them crying, you can just go in and calm them down.’
The babysitter happily agreed, and the parents left for their dinner date.”
“The girl gave the children some milk and cookies and then ushered them upstairs to bed. She started to read them a bedtime story, and before long, the little boy and girl were fast asleep. She switched off the lights and went to watch TV. When the babysitter walked into the parents’ bedroom and sat down, she noticed there was a creepy-looking clown statue standing in the corner of the room. She tried to ignore it, but it looked so eerie and disturbing that it sent a chill down her spine. She felt as though its eyes were staring straight at her while she watched TV.”
“As time passed, the babysitter felt more and more uneasy about the clown statue. Whenever she glanced at it, she got the unsettling feeling that it had moved, ever so slightly. Finally, the clown statue freaked her out so much that she couldn’t handle it any longer. She decided to go downstairs and dial the number the parents had left for her. Soon, the father answered.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ said the babysitter. ‘Everything’s fine. The kids are fast asleep in bed, but I was just wondering…would it be OK if I watched TV downstairs?’
‘Of course,’ replied the father. ‘But why?’
‘I know it sounds silly,’ laughed the girl, ‘but the clown statue is really creeping me out.’
‘The clown statue?’ asked the father.
‘Yeah, the clown statue in your bedroom,’ the girl replied.
The phone went silent for a moment.
‘Listen to me very carefully,’ said the father. ‘Take the children and get out of the house. We will call the police. Go! Now!’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked the girl.
The father gulped and replied, ‘We don’t have a clown statue.’
“For a second, the babysitter just stood there, stunned. Then she dropped the phone, raced upstairs, and grabbed the children. Carrying one under each arm, she ran downstairs again and fled out to the street. Huddled on the sidewalk, comforting the two children, the babysitter looked up at the bedroom window and saw something that made her scream in horror. Peeking through a gap in the curtains was the white, painted face of a clown. It stared at her for a moment, then receded back into the room.”
“Within minutes, the police arrived and cautiously entered the house. In the upstairs bedroom, they found a man dressed in a clown suit. When they arrested him, they found a knife concealed in his costume.
The clown turned out to be a mentally disturbed man who had been stalking the family for months, lurking in their attic during the daytime and coming out to sneak around the house at night.
For weeks, the children had been complaining about a ‘clown statue’ that stood in their room and watched them sleep, but the parents just dismissed this as nightmares.”
—Aditi Agarwal, Quora
2.“A married couple bought an old house. They were very happy — the price and neighborhood were great.”
“One day, the husband found a red crayon in the hallway.”
“Figuring it was left by a former resident, the husband tossed it into a kitchen drawer.
A few days later, he found another red crayon at the very place he found the first crayon. He thought this was strange, so he talked about it to his wife. She turned pale and said she’d also found a red crayon in the same place. They decided a kid in the neighborhood must’ve sneaked into the house.”
“Soon, however, they stumbled across a mysterious fact. Upon studying the layout of the house, they realized there must be another room in front of the hallway where they’d found the crayons. They knocked on the wall, and its sound was obviously different from that of other walls. They peeled off the wallpaper and discovered a hidden door nailed up. They pulled out all the nails and entered the door. Inside was an empty room. Messages were written on the wall with a red crayon: “Mommy I’msorry getmeoutofhere mommymommymommymommy…”
3.“Back in the 1950s, a hairdo style called the beehive was really popular. Girls would back-comb or rat their hair until it was a pad of matted hair, then smooth the outer layer so it looked like a beehive. They then closed their eyes, took a deep breath, and sprayed it with at least half a can of spray. The idea was to spray it so heavily that you could bounce a quarter off it. At night, they carefully wrapped it in toilet paper and pinned the ends in place. The result looked like a turban. They didn’t wash their hair until it was so flat and matted that they absolutely had to do something about it.”
“When I was young, a story started going around school: A girl had left her hair in a beehive for a month. Nobody thought anything about it until one day, the girl sitting behind her noticed blood trickling down the back of her neck.”
“Their teacher escorted the two girls to the nurse’s office. Despite the girls’ protests, the nurse started to attack the girls’ hive with a big brush. Suddenly, roaches started falling out and skittering around the nurse’s office, looking for a place to hide.”
“The shrieking of the girls echoed throughout school. For weeks after, I suspiciously watched all the girls in class wearing hives. I relaxed my vigil when nothing happened, but I never forgot the story.”
—Susan Campbell, Quora
4.“On a dark night, a tired woman drives home alone on a quiet country road. The only light around comes from her car’s headlights — no other cars are in sight. Suddenly, she slams on the brakes, terrified. In the middle of the road is a small bundle, and she can see a tiny head poking out. Someone has abandoned a baby in the middle of the road!”
“She throws open her car door and rushes to the bundle. As she gets up close, heart beating, she realizes it’s all been a bizarre trick — it’s just a doll, not a baby. She grabs the bundle so no one else driving along later has the same frightening experience, dumps it onto the passenger seat of her car, and then — just as she’s about to drive off — notices another car driving up behind her. It’s going really fast and screeches to a halt. In her side mirror, she sees a man get out and charge toward her car.”
“Panicking, she hits the gas and zooms away as quickly as possible. The other driver takes a few moments to get back into his car, so for a while, she thinks she’s lost him. She drives as fast as she can, feeling unsafe in the dark, and thinks more than ever of getting home.
Within a few minutes, though, she realizes the other car is chasing her and starts furiously flashing his headlights. She tries to drive even faster, now worried that when she arrives home, no one will be there. She hopes she can wake up the neighbors. She thinks of phoning her neighbors, but she’s too terrified to dial her phone and drive so fast at the same time.”
“Upon finally arriving home, she can hardly think what to do. Stay in the car, and phone, and hope the man doesn’t attack her inside the car? Get out and run? Scream? She pulls to a stop and fumbles for her phone, but the man is too fast for her. He rushes up to her car door and rips it open.”
“He then screams, ‘GET OUT! I SAW A MAN CLIMB INTO THE BACK OF YOUR CAR WHEN YOU STOPPED!'”
5.“A woman visited her female friend’s apartment. They chatted until it got late, at which point the friend suggested she stay over. The friend slept on a bed, and the woman lay on a futon on the floor. After a while, the woman jumped up from the futon and told her friend she wanted to buy ice cream, and proposed that they go to a convenience store together. The friend said she didn’t want ice cream and told her to go alone but the woman insisted on going together.”
“The friend finally gave in and they walked out of the room. Once outside, the woman sprinted off in the opposite direction of the convenience store. Confused, the friend asked the woman what she was doing, and she said, ‘We need to go to a police station! I saw a man with a large knife under the bed!’”
6.“Every night, Jim gets off work, walks to the subway station, and takes the subway home. And, every night, he waits on the platform near an unhoused man who mumbles things when people walk past. One night, Jim decides to listen to what the man is saying and waits near him.”
“First, a rather heavyset man walks by the unhoused man, who clearly says, ‘Pig.’ Well, thought Jim, I’m not sure that’s polite, but okay.
“The next night, Jim again waits near the unhoused man when a businesswoman in an expensive suit walks by. The man mumbles, ‘Human.’ Okay, thinks Jim. Nothing wrong with that. She’s clearly human.”
“The night after that, Jim again waits near the man when a rather large football supporter walks by. The man mumbles, ‘Buffalo.’
Ah! thinks Jim. He must be referring to people as whatever animal they remind him of.
To test his hypothesis, Jim tries to guess whatever animal the people passing by remind him of. Sometimes, the man says ‘cow’ or ‘pig’ when Jim expects him to. Another time, when a rather jumpy-looking woman passes by, the man mumbles ‘chicken,’ and Jim thinks he’s starting to see the pattern.
But then a group of foreigners walks by, and the man says ‘frog.’ Jim, for the life of him, can’t imagine how the group would resemble a frog.”
“So, Jim finally goes up to the man and says, ‘Excuse me, sir? Every night, I hear you mumble things when people walk by. I was just wondering…what’s that about?'”
“The man looks at Jim with a faint smile and replies, ‘I was blessed with a very sensitive nose. Every day, when people walk by, I can tell, from some of them, by the scent of their breath, what they’ve eaten last. It’s become a game for me to do this. I didn’t know I was saying it out loud. I hope I haven’t offended anyone.'”
“Jim assures the man he hasn’t, and they talk for a few minutes until Jim’s train arrives, and he goes home. It isn’t until later that night that the realization finally sets in.”
7.“I heard about a girl who returned to her dorm room late one night to get her books before heading to her boyfriend’s room for the night. She entered the room but did not turn on the light, knowing that her roommate was sleeping. She stumbled around the room in the dark for several minutes, gathering books, clothes, toothbrush, etc., before finally leaving.”
“The next day, she came back to her room to find it surrounded by police. They asked if she lived there, and she said yes. They took her into the room and told her that her roommate had been murdered in the room the night before. The girl reacted in horror, then looked even more horrified when she saw these words written in blood on the wall: ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?'”
Do you know an urban legend that still unsettled you to this day? Let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form. It could be featured in a future BuzzFeed Community post.
