Terrifying Urban Myths Go Viral, Are Pure Nightmare Fuel

A fascinating Reddit thread is shining a light on some wild urban myths.

It seems like every small town across the planet has some kind of wild local legend attached to it. How many are true?

I can't say. Only those directly involved will ever know. I'm sure many are complete nonsense, but some local legends are definitely rooted in truth.

That leads us to one of the most fascinating threads you'll read all day.

Local urban myths go viral.

A Reddit thread titled "What local legend or urban myth is your town or city known for?" is full of wild stories, and some will definitely keep you awake at night.

Check out the stories below, and let me know your thoughts at David.Hookstead@outkick.com:

• Crybaby Bridge, where a mom in the 70s threw 2 kids off a bridge for crying and now if you go alone at night you can still hear them crying.
• I am from Lower Bavaria, Germany and there is this city Zulling, which also has a church. Next to the church there are two spots in the grass, where nothing grows. People claim that back in the days, some guy robbed the church and killed the pastor. He fled thought the window and the moment he touched the ground outside the church, he got struck by a lightening and died. Since this day nothing grows were he touched the ground. This spot is called Teufelstritt (literally devil's step)
• I'm not sure if it classifies as an urban legend as such, but anyway. The majority of my state truly believes an animal officially declared extinct still roams around in various parts and sightings are still often reported. There is also some secrecy among small communities and locals who have had sightings or encounters with the animal. Yes, I live in Tasmania and it's the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine).
• Supposedly in the 1800s, a young boy was separated from his family's caravan as they tried to escape the flooding creek. The boy stayed in the woods along the creek and became a hermit who would scare off any travelers who entered his domain. Eventually he got himself trampled by horses, and now the ghost of the Hairy Man haunts the area that Hairy Man Road now runs through.
• In Ireland, we have the urban legend of the banshee, an old lady who can be heard screaming in the woods. If you hear the banshee wailing, someone you know will die. If you see a banshee, it's too late.
• In Paducah, KY there is a legend that nearby in the KY dam, there are catfish as big as VW Bugs. Story goes that divers doing work down there swore to never go back down again.
• I live next town over from the Amityville Horror house
• There's a legend around where I live, about the "bunnyman". An escaped mental patient who hung people off a bridge and wore a bloody patchwork suit of rabbit skins. Of course, it has no evidence or historical backing at all.
• My town has a legend about a ghost dog that roams the old cemetery at night, but I've never seen it (and I've been looking!).
• For a while we had a lot of people going missing while walking on the riverbank near the town proper. Logic says people fell into the river and got swept away; one or two people drowned in the river per year. However, some people really ran with it and said some forest cult in the woods was capturing people to use in sacrifices. Didn't help that deep in the surrounding woods there were a few abandoned clusters of houses that some people did use for pagan rituals and there was at least 1 cult of sorts that was well known locally.
• City I grew up in a city that was supposed to missle silo just out of town. Everyone always talk about the Satanist that gather there sacrifice animals to Satan. Yes this was the 80's. As far as I know then only close to that was and old decommissioned arsenal. That the government kept everyone a way from. Yeah dumb bored teens we drive all over and never found a silo.
• In the subdivision that I grew up in. This happened like in the early 90s iirc. A neighbor was tending to his roosters one night and suddenly, scorching foot prints appeared and was heading his way. It stopped when it reached him. No one could explain what happened and supposedly, scientists from a nearby agriculture company visited to investigate it. Following this, a few nights after or months, a scorched circle appeared in the subdivision plaza. Just think of the plaza as one big grassy area where people can play soccer. People thought it was a prank after the weird incident but no one wants to admit and they said that the way the grass burned was clean and not just some random wildfire.
• Bigfoot. Bigfoot is everywhere.
• Dead cows are in the ponds.
• In my town where I live, there is an old shut down inn that was said to have a haunted room
• Around where I grew up you can see a little boy in the window at night. All the rest of the house is dark. Except the one window and what is obviously a little boy up too late.
• Sasquatch is big around here. Plenty of sightings.

Well, those are certainly some wild stories, and many might stop you from sleeping at night. Like I said above, it seems like every small town has its secrets.

I grew up in rural Wisconsin, and I can honestly say we didn't have many stories like the ones above. Instead of urban myths, we had actual problems. There was a gruesome murder several years ago, an unsolved attack on a man and a few other things of that nature. We supposedly had a haunted cemetery maybe 20 miles away, but I never found it interesting.

Clearly, we needed to step our game up because the stories above are way more interesting.

Scary urban myths go viral on Reddit. (Credit: Getty Images)

Does your town have a crazy urban myth? Let me know at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.