See the vote results from past months.
Here are the results of the vote for January 1998. The topic was:
Ghostly Urban Legends
Here is how people answered. There were 144 responses total.
129, or almost 90% of the respondents, have heard of the legend of
Bloody Mary. Wow!
The Vanishing Hitchhiker story ran a close second. 113, or 78%,
of the people who answered have heard of the Vanishing Hitchhiker.
61 (42%) voters have heard about some Haunted Traintracks.
Only 36 (25%) people have heard the story of La Llorona. This is
to be expected, since the story is fairly restricted to the southwestern
U.S.
Here are some of the interesting comments I received on this topic:
When I was an elementary school drama teacher I once heard some screams coming from down the hall (during the day, while school was in session). I ran down the hall to find several girls running from the bathroom. They were mostly giggling. They had been playing Bloody Mary in there with the lights out. Of course they claimed to have seen a bloody face. I've heard that if you see Bloody Mary and she manages to scratch you, you'll die. I'm pretty sure in this case they were fibbing to get attention, or maybe had psyched themselves into seeing something. I've never played the game myself, but I have a feeling that if you THINK you'll see something, you will.
The story of sending the dying boy postcards etc., is
actually a real occurence. I wish I'd kept the newspaper
article as proof, but he was from either Australia or the
UK, and suffering from some form of cancer.
The article focussed on the fact that the kid wanted to
stop recieving mail - he had originally made the request
to try to break some sort of record before he died.
The story featured a pic of the boy and his family with a
huge mailbag - the kids cancer is now in remission,
but it was still virtually impossible for his family to receive
mail, due to the cards still arriving.
'Bloody Mary' I had not heard of, but you might want
to check out the film 'Candyman', which focuses on
urban legends - the Candyman is the same sort of thing
as bloody mary - say his name 5 tims in a mirror..
The film also makes other good points about urban
legends.
One of the most famous instances of the 'vanishing
hitchhiker' story, is the version that actor Telly Salavas
told (Kojak). Can't remember all the details but I've
seen it in magazines and books many times, so it's
still around. Apparently Telly picked up a man and gave
him a lift to a gas station. The guy was really grateful
and wrote his name and adress down, and told Telly
to drop in whenever he's in town. A couple of weeks
later Telly looks up the adress and goes around there.
At the door he is greeted by a woman who says that
no man lives there. They talk for a bit, and he spots a
picture of the man he gave a lift to. She thinks hes playing
some cruel joke on her, since the man in the pic is her
deceased husband. She examines the note Telly
was given, and sure enough it is her husbands handwriting.
I like hearing stuff about ghosts and the sorts.....I think that there is something out there, but I really don't know, I haven't really seen them. I think that you should try the headless horseman story, I would really like to hear about it since I live right across the river from the supposed "slepy hollow"
As I live an hour or so from Chicago, it's easy to guess which
vanishing hitchhiker story I've heard. Resurrection Mary needs a
ride home from the dance. She's a beautiful young Polish woman who
has really lost her way. She hops into a ever so kind strangers
car, only to disappear, or be dropped off at the Resurrection
Cemetery.
Also I'd like to add that you forgot the famous "Claw or head on a
stick" story. And the story of (forgive me I'm unsure of the
story's name) a lone man walking down a desolate road and he hears a
baby crying. He finds the baby and proceeds to carry it on his back
(for some reason). As he walks on the baby become heavier and
heavier. When the man turns to look at the child it is now a devil
of some sort.
I am interested in the topic of Demonology. I read the book on the Smurls?Warren Investigation...It was terrifying to say the least. I am from Green Bay and am also interested in local ghost/demon lore. Our local Catholic diocese has an exorcist, which I find fascinating, even though I am agnostic.
Although there are numerous fictional versions of the vanishing hitchhiker, some books on ghost have some supposively true versions. One is resurrection Mary that occurs in Chicago. I read about it in several books, one "Haunted Places: The National Directory" by Dennis William Hauck. This is a great reference book which I didn't get a chance to add to your list from t he last poll. It summerizes many published hauntings in the US.
Ive heard a few variations on the Bloody Mary theme: one of them being "Blue Baby".Same procedure of the aforementioned, except you chant "Blue Baby" and apperantly a blue deceased child will appear in your arms. According to the story if you drop the child you will be dead before the next sunrise (or sunset, depending on the story-teller)
r.e the haunted traintracks.
i saw on some tv show on Discovery a film about this and it showed a
reporter sprinkling talcum powder or something on her boot and she
drove up to the tracks. she stopped about 3 or 4 meters from the
tracks, and left the car out of gear and switched off. then, the car
just suddenly started to roll forward, towards the tracks, which was
uphill! when it got there, it rolled down the other side. you could
see the whole car all the time. when she got out, you could see loads
of little han prints, the same number as supposedly died in the
story.
I know it's not true, but when I moved to Biloxi Mississippi in 1985, every kid in my school (elementary) told me that Bloody Mary lived down the street from me in this big raggedy house behind Hardee's. I believed them, but hell, I was 6 years old.
As far as the Bloody Mary story, it was told to and by all my friends that when you call out her name, not only did she appear, but the scary part was that she reached out and tried to scratch your face. Thats the part that I was afraid of the most. Anyway, I thought you might want to know and I love your page :)
The version of "Bloody Mary" that I grew up with was similer to the one listed, execept that the image you'd see in the mirror was your OWN face, slashed and bloodied.
I would like to talk about the disappearance of children. Mainly because I was almost one. When I was 11yrs. old ,I was in my grandmother's bedroom gaterhing the laundry, when I reached toward her closet and I saw this shadow raise up and look at me with it's red eyes. I stepped back and ran down the hall. I told my mom what had happened to me and she went to check out the closet and she found this really bad odor . However no creature of my descrption.
I frequently speak to school-children who ALWAYS ask me if Bloody
Mary is real. One child told me how she and six of her most excitable
friends crammed into a dark bathroom and invoked Bloody Mary by
chanting her name [insert number] times. "And she appeared in the
mirror and came out at me and scratched me on the hand!" The girl
didn't realize that she had gotten so overwrought that she had
scratched herself without realizing it until she saw the blood
later. The other query I get is about whether Candyman is
real--another Urban Legend in the making....
-Chris Woodyard-
If bloody Mary appears happy, will be good luck, if she appears mad, better run! Also,can chant, we love you or we hate you to make her happy or pisss her off.
Bloody Mary
When you go into a dark room and say bloody mary ten times, she
reaches through the mirror and slices off your head. Also, you can
stand in a circle and chant bloody mary with your eyes shut and you
see a grave with an arm sticking up out of it. Works best if you do
not tell people what they are supposed to see. Compare the visions
with others afterwards. They are prabably a lot alike. This one
also works with the mirror.
Bloody Mary. The name is Mary but what appears in the
mirror is the image of your future husband.
Haunted traintracks. But it is a road going uphill. That
hill was a battle site during the civil war and its and soldiers
said to push the car (like they pushed their cannons). And
yes you should see hand prints as well.
In "la Llorona", the sorrowfull woman killed her own children after she discovered her husband (father of the children) was having an affair. I was a young teen in Mexico when I first heard of this phantom. She often lurks in a small "pueblo" or "rancheria", Calling and wailing: "Ayyyy de mis hijos!" losely translated: Ohh, of my children! She is cloaked in white or black, and floats around midnight. A lost soul.
The Vanishing Hitchiker actually happened to my Dad in
the 50's.
He was in the USAF in the motor pool and was driving in Ohio
near where he was stationed. (Wright-Patterson AFB) He stopped
to give a man a lift. Said the guy was quiet, so they drove
along in silence. After a bit Dad looked over to offer the
fellow a cigarette and he had vanished. Dad says there was
no way the man coul dhave gotten out of the cab of a moving
Air Force truck and not be heard. There would have been wind
or road noise at the least.
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