The Face in Your Window

The Face in Your Window A blog dedicated to all things creepy- whether that be creepypastas, scary stories you've heard, pictures, or even true events!

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Long Leaf Louisiana Ghost

I watched Deep South Paranormal while in the hospital. They went ghost hunting in Long Leaf Sawmill, Southern Forest Heritage Museum, Long Leaf, Louisiana

One of them was out sitting on this giant piece of machinery called a 'skidder' that dragged logs.

It was a dangerous looking thing with lots of exposed gears and belts. Six men had been caught in it and killed during the sawmill's operation. The ghost hunters had one of those thermal heat detecting devices and it showed a yellow ball of light on the machinery behind the man sitting there.  They called it a head even though it was on the flat floor part of the skidder.  It looked like this

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Top 3 scariest paranormal stories you've heard from friends? Does that help narrow it down?

To be honest it doesn’t particularly help narrow it down cause that’s still a lot lol not to be a pain in the ass but I will tell you the top 3 that come to mind now (thank you for your interest) My best friends boyfriend told me this story years ago. He said its the only reason he really believes in the paranormal at all and that it was the most horrifying thing that’s ever happened to him. He was staying at his grandfathers house and one night when he was going to sleep, he kept hearing the sound of something dragging along the floor in the hall way. He was getting frightened by it and didnt know what it could possibly be since everyone was asleep. He got up and looked under the door without opening it- he saw a pair of hands dragging their knuckles along the floor as the person they belonged to walked. When he opened the door, there was no sign that anyone was in the hall way. That story always gives me the chills-because it’s both creepy and just so bizarre. Knuckles dragging on the floor? It’s just a very odd thing.

This next story is the stuff horror movies are made of and will definitely sound made up, but I don’t think it is as I trust the person who told me very much. My sisters friend is a professional paranormal investigator. He was investigating an abandoned institution a couple years ago with a friend. They were in the basement and my sisters friend kept hearing whispering, but the person he was with kept talking over it. My sisters friend got very frustrated and said “Shut the fuck up!” His friend turned around and on the wall in graffiti they saw “I think you should shut the fuck up too.” Now, they’re not saying that it was definitely paranormal-someone could have spray painted it before and it was just a very creepy coincidence but disturbing nonetheless.

Hmmm. There are definitely a lot of creepier ones than the next, but I’m having trouble thinking of one right now. The thought of phone calls from the dead always gives me the creeps, especially with so many claims that it has happened to people. I had another friend a few years ago who’s grandfather was very ill. The grandfathers brother had passed away several years before this (I forget exactly how many years.) on the day that her grandfather died, he received a phone call from his dead brother. His brother told him he was going to die that night and that he should say goodbye to every one now. I believe they talked for a good hour. I forget a lot of the important details because it was so long ago, but that always creeped me out.

I will throw in a bonus since I couldn’t remember much of the last one.There’s a house in a town not far from me where a father beat his daughters boyfriend to death in ’90s (I think it was the ’90s). Nobody lives in the house now and many ghost hunters and paranormal investigators report that if you go to that house, sometimes you can hear the sound of the father dragging the boyfriends body across the porch.

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The home at 432 Abercorn Street is one of Savannah’s most haunted buildings. Legend has it a father tied his daughter to a chair after she disobeyed his orders and left her to die of heat exhaustion. Now, the ghost of the murdered child reportedly stares out the window of the vacant home, lonely and abandoned. Could that be her in the picture above? (I saw this house when I was in Savannah by the way! I didn’t see any apparitions or activity while there though)

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My photos from a Haunted tour of Savannah, Georgia I went on. We rode in a hearse that was previously used for 15 years and delivered around 2,000 bodies in its time. You can read the horrifying story behind the first house in these photos if you go to miseryismanifold.tumblr.com/tagged/paranormal

I will write about each individual place we were taken to in the near future.

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What's the scariest paranormal story you've ever heard that's allegedly true and did not personally happen to you?

My brain is packed with paranormal stories. Like “Paranormal Stories Stella Has heard: Volume 1 (A-B)” style so it’s so hard to narrow it down but I will tell you one that happened to my mom and aunt and has always horrified me, still gives me the chills to think about. My uncle died of a heroin overdose at the age of 32. One night, a couple months after he passed away (I’m not sure about the events prior to this) she saw him standing right in front of her. She said that he looked so angry, his eyes bulging out and veins very visible in his forehead, he was sweating and he looked absolutely furious. She said “what are you doing here, you should be dead” as he slowly stepped towards her he angrily screamed “SHOULD BE DEAD? SHOULD BE DEAD!? I AM DEAD!” He didn’t say anything after that but remained there for a few more moments with that look on his face. A few minutes after the event occurred, my aunt called my mom. She called to tell her that she saw my uncle standing in her room looking furious, the exact same image at the EXACT same time as my mom.

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This picture was taken by the Cheshire Paranormal Society on the Caerwrie bridge. It’s believed a number of ghosts haunt this bridge possibly in connection with a former burial ground nearby, for which the bridge was the entrance.

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Unexplained figure in a window at Broughton Elementary School in Pennsylvania, said to be very haunted.

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The above photo recently appeared in the paranormal section of Reddit.com. The OP writes: “This picture was taken of a nurse’s viewing monitor. On the monitor, this black figure appeared standing on top of the patient who was lying in the bed.The patient died within a few hours of this figure appearing.”

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Little American Indian girl ghost

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Another creepy photo I captured on the haunted tour of Savannah. This was taken when going by what used to be an execution square where thousands of people were executed in some way. We did not see the spirit in person, we only saw it when looking back at photos. I think the apparition looks like its wearing a cloak like an executioner would. We also unknowingly got a video of it and you can clearly see that it is transparent, however it was recorded on my moms phone and I’m having trouble sending it.

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I also went to the Moon River Brewing Company which is widely considered the most haunted place in Savannah. I got to go in the basement, which is undoubtably creepy as anything. I do ghost hunt regularly and my house is very haunted, so I’m normally fairly accustomed to the paranormal and don’t get too spooked but this basement- just looking down the stairs I did not want to go down because I got such a horrifying vibe from it. I actually waited for some other people to down as well so I didn’t have to do so alone. The feeling of a presence is more over whelming than you could imagine. However, I did not see much- just a dark shadow figure walking across the room.

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Visiting what is considered the most haunted hotel in Georgia. Two notable experiences: -my mom, my stepdad and I saw a curtain get pulled back while we were standing outside. There is currently no one staying at this hotel and only 2 workers: one who was sitting in her office, and another in the basement. We watched the curtain slide all the way to the side. There was no hand or face visible and then it slid back again.

-the last photo in this set has a strange purple light at the top and then if you look at the couch, there appears to be an imprint as if someone is sitting on it. The spot only showed up in the picture.

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Today I went on a haunted tour of Savannah, Georgia in a hearse that was used for 20 years and had delivered thousands of bodies in its time.

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There were so many stories tonight, but this one was one of the most disturbing to me, and it is 100% factual. A family consisting of a husband, wife, and three children lived in this house in the 1880s. One night, they left their children home with a baby sitter. They returned to find that all three of their children had been brutally murdered. (Along with the baby sitter I believe) They never found out who the murderer was, but it occurred just a couple days after Jack The Ripper committed his last murder in England. The killer was dubbed “The Georgia Ripper”. People report seeing children banging on the windows screaming for help, and many visitors have captured photos where you can see a little girl through one of the windows.

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Cops Share True "On Duty" Ghost Stories (credit to ghostsnghouls.com)

Nurses aren’t the only professionals with creepy on-the-job tales.  Check out these real ghost stories from Officer.com, a forum for law enforcement professionals.

UPDATE: Check out thesecond installment of Cops Share True “On Duty” Ghost Stories

The Shadow Woman “I related this before, but I as part of my Reserve training, I had to pull a 12-hour shift in Corrections. Our county facility is old, old, old… Anyway, it was med-call, so the nurse had opened the little clinic, and we went to each cellblock and had inmates line up to get their meds. After that was finished, the nurse left, the clinic was closed, and all of the inmates were back in their blocks. I secured the last block, and as I turned back towards the clinic, I saw the shadow on the floor of someone crossing back to the clinic. I dashed around the corner, thinking an inmate had managed to avoid being secured and was sneaking into the clinic. There was no one there. The shadow had been absolutely distinct. One of the other COs laughed and said, “Oh, that’s just Miss Rose. She’s been hanging around here for years!”

*Shudder* It creeped me out pretty good…”

The Door at the End of the Hall “Myself and a buddy on my squad responded to an alarm. The incident location was an old office type building that had been converted to doctor’s offices. There was a pharmacy attached to it. Our dispatch received a motion signal from an upstairs office. Key holder arrives on scene and we go in to secure the building. The stairs were locked behind a door that, of course, the key holder didn’t have keys to, so we took the elevator up to the second floor (not the most tactically sound option, I know).

Elevator opens to a pitch black hallway… except for one overhead light at the end of the hall. We start checking doors, and so far all are secured. We get to the last office, and sure enough, the door is unlocked. We make entry and observe it to be an unused office. The door opened to a sizable waiting room and reception area. There were about 10 or 12 exam rooms, all cleared with no hiccups.

We exit the office and immediately, something seems off. That is when I realize the overhead light at our end of the hallway that had been on was now off, replaced by another light over by the elevators. I look at my squad mate and he is completely white. I ask him what is wrong and he says, “Weren’t all those doors we just checked closed and locked?” I tell him “Yeah, so?” Buddy says, “Well now they’re all standing open.” Sure enough, all the offices down the hallway we had just checked were now standing open. Pucker factor sinks in at this point.

So we start clearing offices and securing offices. We finish the last office, and on our way out, just before we turn the corner to get into the waiting area, the main door just slams shut. Then, our radios start going nuts with some kind of static feedback. Now I just want to get the hell out of there.

We get back in the elevator and head down to the first floor to make contact with the key holder again. However, key holder is nowhere to be found. I contact dispatch and request a call back number for the key holder so I can advise him of what we found. Dispatch states that the key holder was still en route to us and was advising an ETA of 5 minutes. I advise dispatch that we had already been out with the key holder. Dispatch requests I give them a call.

I call dispatch and she tells me that there is no way we were out with a key holder. She states that the alarm company had only just made contact with one. Eventually, the “real” key holder arrives on scene and I ask her about the man that had let us in the building (the first key holder). She asked me to describe him, so I did. She states that that sounds like one of the doctors that used to lease the office on the second floor AT THE END OF THE HALL. She then states that he had committed suicide at his summer home several days ago.

I still won’t go back there.”

Grandma’s Back “When I was a municipal cop, I was sent to a missing person/runaway juvenile call. The town I worked in was inner city and poor, but it was one of the better streets in town and the family was squared away (the husband and wife were both educators).

While I was taking the report of their runaway teenage daughter in the family’s living room, an older daughter who was in the room pointed toward a hallway and yelled, “Grandma!” The husband ran into the hallway yelling, “Ma, Ma!” The husband returned to the living room, and asked, ‘Officer, did you see her? Did you see my mother?’ I told him I had not, and asked him why it was remarkable that his mother had walked down the hallway. The husband replied, ‘She died last year. We see her walking around the house all the time.’

I took the rest of the report while standing on the front porch.”

The Abandoned Hospital “A few years back, prior to sworn LEO, I worked as a security guard at a hospital. Sounds cool, and it was, except for the fact it was 9pm to 7am, I worked alone, and the hospital I guarded was abandoned.

I was always a 3rd shift kind of person. I don’t get night ‘jitters’ or scare easily. But this place could do it to the best of ‘em. Every night I would walk (or ride a wheelchair) through the halls that were supposed to be empty/unused. Every night I would end up having to close doors and re-lock them. I would walk one floor, move up to the next, and continue on.

I got a little shaky when an hour after already walking a hallway, I would have to turn off the same hall lights and close the same doors AGAIN in the building. Or when I would be walking a hall and then I would hear footsteps on the floor above me, doors opening and closing, elevators moving from floor to floor, phones ringing, nurse call lights going on, etc.

There were only three times I got the “I hate this s#&%” feeling. First time I was checking offices on the 4th floor. There was a light on in a locked hallway (no surprise). This hallway hadn’t been renovated since the place was built, short of electricity, so everything was from the 1920′s. Unlock the door, flip the lights, walk out, re-lock the door, and turn to leave. Behind me I hear the “flip” of a light switch. Through the frosted glass I see the lights went back on. I left the hallway alone that night.

Second time was riding an elevator between floors. I was taking the elevator to the top floor, when at about #4 of #5 floors, I hear laughing and muffled talking. It kept getting louder as I got higher. Elevator makes it to #5, doors swing open, and absolute silence. Of course, every light on the floor was on, even in the patient rooms. I checked high and low, not a single living and breathing person in that place except for me.

Third, and worst of all, was just an average night. I’m on the lower level locking a door in a corridor. The door had a glass middle but on the backside it was covered by white tape. The room it led to it was dark and the hallway a few feet behind me was partially lit, so the glass acted like a perfect mirror. Everything normal, key in, lock clicks, turning the key… When behind me I see the full outline of a person walk past me in the hallway. Clear as day, just a full shadow of a person walk past. I froze only for about a second, and then ran into the hall after the supposed ‘person’. No one, just silence.”

The Shadow Walker “I was sitting in the flat of a hill, monitoring traffic. It was about 2-3 am. Where I was sitting; its a well known spot where an unsolved murder victim was found about 26 years ago. No other officers would sit here, even though citizens are constantly doing 15-20mph over the limit in this area.

As I was sitting there I saw a shadow cross the back of my unit, coming from the passenger side. Almost immediately afterwards the shadow came up the driver side of my unit then across the front. Mind you it’s completely dark in this area, and the only lighting around me is from the moon.

Thinking the worse, I turn on all my lights to light up the area to see if I can see who, or what is around me. —– Nothing.

I figured it was time to leave that area. Once I got to a lighted area I stopped and realized that my camera was recording from where I hit my emergency lights. I reviewed the footage and you can see where a figure starts from the driver front of my unit, then for a half a second the entire camera goes black, as if someone put their finger over the lens, then it goes back to normal.

Needless to say, I haven’t sat back in that spot.”

Link to the source: ghostsnghouls.com/2011/09/18/cops-share-real-ghost-stories/

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5 Scariest Urban Legends (article courtesy of paranormalhaze.com)

The Urban Legend can have its lineage traced all the way back to the earliest form of storytelling, when terrifying tales were traded around fires, either as a warning or for mere entertainment. The Urban Legend is a contemporary legend, a modern form of folklore or mythology which reflects the era’s fears or trepidations. While originally, like the original talks of folklore, they were passed around by word of mouth, modern technology has seen the distribution of tales taken on by the new forms of communication and media. The latest of these being used are the chain-email and the use of various social networking sites, which have been able to add an extra fear dynamic in the added clause that if the note is not forwarded to a certain number of people, some form of paranormal revenge will befall the ill-fated reader.

Most Urban Legends change over time and have variations depending on where it is told. They usually have happened to a ‘friend of a friend’, giving it proximity and removing that feeling of being remote to the story, adding that extra fear factor. They are the scourge of the playgrounds and the invader of the wine fuelled dinner party. They are the tale of that misfortunate, distant acquaintance. They are the always terrifying Urban Legends.

The Urban Legend can have its lineage traced all the way back to the earliest form of storytelling, when terrifying tales were traded around fires, either as a warning or for mere entertainment. The Urban Legend is a contemporary legend, a modern form of folklore or mythology which reflects the era’s fears or trepidations. While originally, like the original talks of folklore, they were passed around by word of mouth, modern technology has seen the distribution of tales taken on by the new forms of communication and media. The latest of these being used are the chain-email and the use of various social networking sites, which have been able to add an extra fear dynamic in the added clause that if the note is not forwarded to a certain number of people, some form of paranormal revenge will befall the ill-fated reader.

Most Urban Legends change over time and have variations depending on where it is told. They usually have happened to a ‘friend of a friend’, giving it proximity and removing that feeling of being remote to the story, adding that extra fear factor. They are the scourge of the playgrounds and the invader of the wine fuelled dinner party. They are the tale of that misfortunate, distant acquaintance. They are the always terrifying Urban Legends.

LINK

As told on the Internet, Feb. 16, 1994:

“When I was about 9 years old, I went to a friend’s for a birthday/slumber party. There were about 10 other girls there. About midnight, we decided to play Mary Worth. Some of us had never heard of this so one of the girls told the story.

Mary Worth lived a long time ago. She was a very beautiful young girl. One day she had a terrible accident that left her face so disfigured that nobody would look at her. She had not been allowed to see her own reflection after this accident for fear that she would lose her mind. Before this, she had spent long hours admiring her beauty in her bedroom mirror.

One night, after everyone had gone to bed, unable to fight the curiosity any longer, she crept into a room that had a mirror. As soon as she saw her face, she broke down into terrible screams and sobs. It was at this moment that she was so heartbroken and wanted her old reflection back, which she walked into the mirror to find it, vowing to disfigure anybody that came looking for her in the mirror.

After hearing this story, which was told very scarily, we decided to turn out all of the lights and try it. We all huddled around the mirror and starting repeating “Mary Worth, Mary Worth, I believe in Mary Worth”. About the seventh time we said it one of the girls that was in front of the mirror started screaming and trying to push her way back away from the mirror. She was screaming so loud that my friend’s mom came running into the room. She quickly turned on the lights and found this girl huddled in the corner screaming. She turned her around to see what the problem and saw these long fingernail scratches running down her right cheek. I will never forget her face as long as I live!!”

A tale that makes the audience fears their own reflection. It always comes down the old adage of ‘curiosity killed the cat’. There is something inherently scary about the idea of something coming out of a mirror or television screen, like it is some parallel world, or perhaps a world that is the opposite to ours, as used by such films as The Ring. The idea of an opposite, parallel universe gives us our closest representation of hell. Bloody Mary brings forth the idea that the evil spirits of the world are captured within the glass that capture our own images, and creates the fear that not only they can be called forth into our world, but that perhaps, after death, we will find ourselves trapped behind the glass.

LINK

As told by Autumn Murphy…

“A man and woman went to Las Vegas for their honeymoon, and checked into a suite at a hotel. When they got to their room they both detected a bad odour. The husband called down to the front desk and asked to speak to the manager. He explained that the room smelled very bad and they would like another suite. The manager apologized and told the man that they were all booked because of a convention. He offered to send them to a restaurant of their choice for lunch compliments of the hotel and said he was going to send a maid up to their room to clean and to try and get rid of the odour.

After a nice lunch the couple went back to their room. When they walked in they could both still smell the same odour. Again the husband called the front desk and told the manager that the room still smelled really bad. The manager told the man that they would try and find a suite at another hotel. He called every hotel on the strip, but every hotel was sold out because of the convention. The manager told the couple that they couldn’t find them a room anywhere, but they would try and clean the room again. The couple wanted to see the sights and do a little gambling anyway, so they said they would give them two hours to clean and then they would be back.

When the couple had left, the manager and all of housekeeping went to the room to try and find what was making the room smell so bad. They searched the entire room and found nothing, so the maids changed the sheets, changed the towels, took down the curtains and put new ones up, cleaned the carpet and cleaned the suite again using the strongest cleaning products they had. The couple came back two hours later to find the room still had a bad odour. The husband was so angry at this point, he decided to find whatever this smell was himself. So he started tearing the entire suite apart himself.”  “As he pulled the top mattress off the box spring he found a dead body of a woman.”

This has to be counted as one of the most terrifying of the Urban Legends because it is one of the only of the creepy crop that actually has factual validation. Although there are no incidents that mirror this one exactly (none having been reported in Vegas), there have been numerous reports of stories similar to this appearing in newspapers around America.

In 1999, the Burgen Record reports of an incident of two German tourists, who had complained of a terrible, rancid smell in their room. Despite complaining, the couple ended up staying the night, sleeping above the decomposing corpse of a Saul Hernandez, 64, who was found in a similar hiding place as the body in the Urban Legend in the Burgundy Motor Inn in Atlantic City, another American gambling Mecca. The most recent story paralleling the Body in the Bed was reported in March, 2010 in Memphis. ABC Eyewitness News reported:

“On March 15th, investigators were called back to room 222 at the Budget Inn, where the body of Sony Millbrook was found under the bed. Police say she was found inside the metal box frame that sits directly on the floor after someone reported smelling a strange odor. The box springs and mattress fit into the top of the bed frame.

Room 222, according to investigators, had been rented 5 times and cleaned many times by the hotel staff since the day Millbrook was reported missing. Homicide investigators say Millbrook appears to have been murdered.”

It is the terrifying truth behind the metropolitan myth that makes this one of the scariest Urban Legends being told today.

LINK

“I have this friend of a friend who used to babysit as a teenager. Her clients were pretty wealthy and live in this absolutely huge house out near the country, on the outskirts of the town they live in. I think she’s a doctor and he’s a partner at some law firm, so we are talking huge income. It’s really nice out there, peaceful, but a bit out of the way.

The house is a bit ridiculous; an unbelievable number of rooms. You can easily get lost in the place. They’re a bit anal, especially about the house. They have a large number of inherited family heirlooms lying around the place, and the father is quite the ‘no nonsense’ father, if you know what I mean?

Anyway, this one night they go out for some posh-do dinner party and leave this girl to look after the kids. As I said, he’s pretty anal and doesn’t want her wandering around the house where she might damage some antiquated piece of armour or whatever, so he says she has to stay in this one reception room. It has a kitchen attached to it and has this huge screen TV, so it’s fully decked out to keep her entertained. So they leave and, being a strict household, they soon obediently go to bed. She takes up residence in this specially designated room and starts watching TV, making herself a snack and what not. Before long she starts to feel uncomfortable. There, in the corner of the room, is this ugly, bulky clown statue. It looks like some grotesque antique piece from the 20’s or around that period and it’s all grimy, covered in what looks like oil. She can’t help getting the feeling it’s watching her. It’s been said that we have this inbuilt ability to sense being watched, but it is not uncommon for it to play tricks on you. She tried to ignore it, but she can’t shake the sense that those eyes are burning into her. In the end she relents and takes her phone to the toilet in the hall outside. In her head she was telling herself that she’s insane, thinking the statue can hear her, what a ridiculous thought, but she leaves anyway.

‘Hey. It’s Sarah. Look, I’m really sorry to call you up like this but that clown statue you have in the reception room, it’s really making me uncomfortable. Would it be ok to move to another room or just stick a blanket over the thing of something?’

After a long pause he replies.

‘Okay Sarah, I need you to get the children from the room, get them into your car and take them to the nearest house. When you are there, call the police.’ I think it’s safe to say after hearing ‘call the police’ you aren’t about to ask questions. She grabbed the kids and ran.

It turns out the kids had complained of a clown had been watching them sleep in their room. The father put it down to silly stories and had basically disregarded what they had said until the babysitter had seen the thing too. Apparently a Psychiatric Unit had closed down recently in the area and not everyone had stable places to go. The story goes that the police seemed to try and hide their concern, though not very well after hearing the mention of a clown costume before heading over to the house. After a thorough search of the building, they failed to find the clown. It turns out that the patient had been treated for vivid and dangerous fantasies prior to release, but had not been able to complete his course before the closure of the unit. They didn’t catch him.”

The fear of clowns, or Coulrophobia, is a relatively widespread fear, and relates back to the famous Stephen King novel, It, in which seven children are terrorized by an entity that mainly appears in the form of ‘Pennywise the Dancing Clown.’ The twisted smiles and make up of clowns have come so much more to represent twisted and insane evil over the innocent child’s entertainer in recent years, most famously in Batman’s arch-nemesis, the psychopathic Joker. It is perhaps the mask and facade of innocence that the make-up represents that makes the clown so scary. There is also the link with pedophilia or sexual assault. This Urban Legend is terrifying for babysitters, playing on the fear of intruders, both as the invader that they are supposed to protect the children from, as well as being a potential threat to the babysitter herself. There are variations of the tale that both pose most threat to the children, or to the sitter. Either way, this is an Urban Legend that has haunted babysitters for years and deserves a place as one of the scariest of the Urban Legends.

LINK

“A woman leaves her work late, realising that she has nothing for breakfast in the morning she stops off at a garage on the way home to pick up some supplies before heading home. The job that the woman does sometimes calls for her to put in long hours of overtime and by the time she leaves work the road is pretty deserted. After a stretch of encountering no cars on the road, a car comes up quite fast behind her. It shines its indicator before starting to pull out from behind her, looking as if it is going to overtake before hitting the breaks and swerving back in behind her.

The driver of the other car starts to flash its lights crazily behind her, dazzling her vision somewhat. In a panic, she starts to speed up. Desperately, she reaches for her phone, but at the speed she’s going she’s scared that she won’t be able to handle the car if she tries to make the call.

The driver behind starts to become more erratic, flashing their lights even more and driving right up behind her. He even ends up bumping her from behind several times, which causes her to lose her phone. She speeds home, jumping every red light, which the car behind does to. Finally reaching her house she springs out of her car and runs for the front door just as the other car come careening into the drive behind her. Just as she puts her key into the door the driver of the other car screams.

‘For God’s sake, lock the car door!’ Without thinking, she does it. Just as the electronic lock clicks, she sees the face of a man materialise at the window of the back seat, staring intently at her and banging lightly on the window.”

This tale easily deserves its place as one of the scariest of the Urban Legends. It has led countless people to check their backseats every time they drive at night (including me). The interesting moral to the story is that it isn’t always the most obvious source of fear that actually presents you with danger.

There is another common variant that sees a creepy looking petrol station attendant trying to coax the driver out of the car. It is a tale designed to make people re-evaluate their prejudiced and preconceptions, as the attendant that causes so much fear is actually the individual trying to save the driver in an incredibly delicate and volatile situation.

The basic bottom line is the hidden fear. You feel safe locked in your car and the danger always lies outside. As long as you lock yourself in, you are safe from any threats. This flips this common conception on its head, seeing the victim locking themselves in with the danger.

LINK

Email example as circulated in May 2001: Subj: DON’T DELETE THIS!!! (it scared the crap outta me)

“Once there was a beautiful young girl who lived in a small town just south of Farmersburg. Her parents had to go to town for a while, so they left their daughter home alone, but protected by her dog, which was a very large collie. The parents told the girl to lock all the windows and doors after they had left. And at about 8:00pm the parents went to town. So doing what she was told the girl shut and locked every window and every door. But there was one window in the basement that would not close completely.”

“Trying as best as she could she finally got the window shut, but it would not lock. So she left the window, and went back upstairs. But just to make sure that no one could get in, she put the dead-bolt lock on the basement door.”

“Then she sat down had some dinner and decided to go to sleep for the night. Settling down to sleep at about 12:00 she snuggled up with the dog and fell asleep.”

“But at one point, she suddenly woke up. She turned and looked at the clock…it was 2:30. She snuggled down again wondering what had woken her…..when she heard a noise. It was a dripping sound. She thought that she had left the water running, and now it was dripping into the drain of her sink. So thinking it was no big deal she decided to go back to sleep.”

“But she felt nervous so she reached her hand over the edge of her bed, and let the dog lick her hand for reassurance that he would protect her. Again at about 3:45 she woke up hearing dripping. She was slightly angry now but went back to sleep anyway. Again she reached down and let the dog lick her hand. Then she fell back to sleep.”

“At 6:52 the girl decided that she had had enough…she got up just in time to see her parents were pulling up to the house. “Good,” she thought. “Now somebody can fix the sink…’cause I know I didn’t leave it running.” She walked to the bathroom and there was the collie dog, skinned and hung up on the curtain rod. The noise she heard was its blood dripping into a puddle on the floor. The girl screamed and ran to her bedroom to get a weapon, in case someone was still in the house…..and there on the floor, next to her bed she saw a small note, written in blood, saying: HUMANS CAN LICK TOO MY BEAUTIFUL.”

“Now it is time for you to lock all the windows and doors. This letter is the only chain letter that is true. This did happen many years ago, and the man who killed the dog was never caught. If you delete this letter you will suffer the same fate as the girl in the story did, years after the dog was killed. She was raped and killed in the same town and same house as the dog. Do not dismiss this letter, because if you do, a horrible thing will become of you, everyone will soon know your name. But only because it will be the headline of your local newspaper for a long time. It will read… Small Town Murder On The Loose! You cannot chance your luck on a chain letter so serious as this. Give up your chance to send this letter to 23 people and you will be giving up your chance to live. You were warned. I hope that I will not see any murder stories in the papers anytime soon. And now I bid you a good day. And one more thing… you only have 23 minutes… sorry.”

This is a perfect example of the evolution of the Urban Legend that has developed the added requirement of action on the behalf of the reader. It has proved a popular phenomenon amongst users of the social networking sites, and has been a popular chain email, mainly amongst the younger users who believe that not sending on a piece of electronic is going to end in your death.

The interesting thing about this phenomenon is its similarity to the Nightmare on Elm Street films. That if something is not performed then the killer will come back in some supernatural form to get a new victim. It plays into all the factors that surround the killer of the film, those of paedophilia and preying on child victims, a common theme amongst the scariest of these metropolitan myths. Most of these chains warm that the attack will come at night, while you sleep. Sound familiar?

With media and technology changing so quickly it will be interesting to see the next step that the Urban Legend will take and what additions will be added to make them all that more truly terrifying.

[theoverworld]

The Grifter

The Grifter is an urban legend that began to circulate on the Internet in 2009. The video is said to show horrifying images of people being tortured and killed. Viewers of the movie can experience nausea, trauma, night terrors, clinical depression, and even commit suicide. The content shows the human sacrifice of small babies and images of satanic ritual abuse. In some cases, people have attempted to make a copy of the film, but have failed.A famous staple of /x/ and numerous other forums dedicated to the paranormal; it is rumoured to be posted on youtube occasionally, but is always quickly taken down. Whenever The Grifter enters the topic of conversation on the above-mentioned forums, people will warn against watching it, even begging you not to ruin your life.

It has been said that the video was recorded in the 1930s and portrays a collection of strange pictures and sounds. In one part of the movie, the words “Your race is the one that is dying” appears while a picture of a plant rotting is seen. The footage displays close up shots of corpses and people who have been possessed by demons. It has been described as the most disturbing video available on the Internet. However, many feel the tape is a hoax and nothing more than an urban legend.