10 Creepy Urban Legends That Turned Out to Be True (13 photos)

The world is full of mysterious stories and legends, told around a campfire late at night. Some of them are chilling, but it's reassuring to know they're just fiction... Really fiction? After all, the legends in our collection actually turned out to be true.





The Griggstown Cow

It was believed that a "ghost cow" roamed the outskirts of New Jersey, appearing only on foggy days and quickly disappearing. The mysterious animal was reported to the police, but law enforcement officers didn't even bother to investigate, as there hadn't been a single dairy farm in the area for decades.



But one day in 2002, a report came in of a sick, elderly bull stuck in a ravine. Veterinarians concluded that it was best to euthanize the animal, as it was very weak and apparently in pain. Apparently, the bull had escaped from the farm and spent decades wandering the woods. After that, the "ghost cow" never appeared again.

The Ant Hill Kids

"As a child, I lived in rural Ontario, Canada, and my parents always told me not to stray too far into the woods. Rumor had it that a monster lived there, dragging everyone into its lair, and after encountering it, no one ever returned."





In fact, this monster turned out to be Roch Thériault, the leader of the Ant Hill Kids cult. Convinced that the apocalypse was imminent, Thériault converted to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and lived by their rules: no tobacco, no junk food, no alcohol, and no drugs. Using his natural charisma and persuasive powers, he convinced a group of people to quit their jobs and retreat into the forest to live as hermits.



Roch and his mistresses

Over time, Thériault's rules regarding cult members became increasingly strict, to the point where members were forbidden to speak in the absence of the leader. Those who wanted to leave the sect were tortured with rods, hung from the ceiling, and beaten with hammers.



Thériault employed many other disciplinary practices. He forced members to break their legs with sledgehammers, shoot each other in the shoulders, and eat their own and others' feces, insects, and rats. He tied children to a tree and forced others to throw rocks at them.

This continued until Theriault was jailed in 1989, more than 10 years later.

Shoe Licker

This is perhaps one of the most innocuous stories on our list. One day, a "shoe licker" appeared in the Tampa, Florida, area. At least, that's what the locals called him.



Rumor had it that he would approach people in public places and ask them to "show him the soles of their shoes." When they did, he would suddenly drop to the floor and start licking them. Naturally, for a long time everyone thought it was some stupid joke, but it turns out the "shoe licker" is real!



Video of the "shoe licker"

He's a tall, thin homeless guy, aged 20-30. He's most often seen in the Ybor City area. It turns out the "shoe licker" has a "master," who demands that the boy lick the shoes of everyone he passes.

Fairy House

For a while, rumors circulated in Washington state about a fairy house located somewhere deep in the woods. One day, a park ranger set out to find the mysterious place and stumbled upon something terrifying. A man saw a treehouse containing a variety of child pornography. A ranger lowered it to the ground, but when he returned, someone had already dragged it back into the treehouse.



Eventually, the owner of the "fairy house" was identified and arrested.

Something

"As a child, I was told a legend about 'something' in Northern Nevada making people disappear. I always thought it was the work of aliens. When I grew up, I realized there was something far more sinister behind these disappearances. There were rumors of a serial killer who mainly attacks truck drivers and motorists."



The author of this story admits that he tries to avoid this place at all costs and always carries a gun. As do many other frightened locals.

Project MKULTRA

MCULTRA was a secret CIA project aimed at studying means of manipulating human consciousness, including through the use of psychotropic substances. For a long time, no one believed the project existed, dismissing it as a fabrication. But later, data leaked detailing one of the "experiments."



One of the children was repeatedly filmed having sex with high-ranking officials, so that the recordings could later be used to manipulate them. This was how the project was funded. It's scary to imagine what information was contained in other documents that were promptly destroyed...

Cropsey

In the 1970s and 1980s, a legend circulated in Staten Island, New York, about a monster named Cropsey who kidnapped small children. Locals considered him a boogeyman, but it turned out he was a real person.



Police discovered that a deranged maniac was behind all the kidnappings, who was subsequently caught and imprisoned. After that, the crimes ceased, and Cropsey "disappeared."

The Hermit of North Pond

At several resorts in the United States, food and personal belongings have periodically disappeared from tourists. People began to suspect a mysterious man, who had allegedly been seen in the forest a couple of times.



It turned out that the thief really did exist. He was Knight Christopher, better known as the "Hermit of North Pond." The man spent 27 years in the forest and committed about a thousand thefts during that time. Knight was quite picky and usually stole only food that had a long shelf life. As he later admitted, he decided to give up his normal life and retreat into the forest under the influence of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant tragedy.

The Secret of the Military Base

An American student told a story about how he once risked expulsion and proved the urban legend of secret underground tunnels to be true. He and his friends found a way into a mine shaft and literally "went back to 1945."



"The tunnels were enormous, but surprisingly, everything was in good condition. There was even an underground parking lot with four SUVs (with rotted tires). It looked like the garage was located under the university football field."

The tunnels led to the cafeteria, the administration building, each dorm, and an old, abandoned part of campus inaccessible from the surface. We soon realized we were in the remains of a hospital/morgue. Hospital beds were still there, along with surgical curtains and gowns. There were even medical equipment on the tables: scalpels, saws, pliers, and so on."

The Green Man

Almost every night, a "faceless man," also known as the "Green Man," roamed the streets of Pennsylvania, USA. Locals were terrified of him, and would sometimes scare their children with him. It turned out, however, that he was a real person who had suffered a serious electrical injury as a child.



The man lost his nose and eyes, so he only went outside at night to avoid alarming anyone. But the opposite happened...