1. Meat Is Murder (Germany)
The legend goes that in post-war Berlin a woman who was walking through a crowd one day saw a blind man struggling. She offered to help him. He told her he was trying to deliver a letter - would she take it for him? It was on the way she was heading, so she said 'sure'. She set off with the letter, but remembered to check and see if the blind man was doing okay. She caught sight of him without his glasses and cane, hurrying down an alley. Feeling suspicious, she went to the police. When they went to the address on the letter she'd been given, they found bags of human flesh. The letter itself read: "This is today's serving". 1947 was known as the "Year of Hunger' in Germany, a country recently decimated by World War Two. People avoided starvation by eating what they could find: dogs, cats, rats, frogs, snails, as this rumor attests to, people.
2. The Well To Hell (Russia)
In 1984 a team of Russian scientists drilled deeper than ever before into the Earth's crust. It was on a remote peninsula in Northern Russia that hell was purportedly discovered, 12 kilometers below the surface. Supposeedly they through a point that reached 2000 degrees when the drill started sspinning strangely. They lowered their microphones in to take measurements and listened. It was then that they heard thousands of human voices, all screaming in agony. Were they souls trapped in hell? An explosion followed and a winged devil burst from the hole in the ground, killing 13 of the workers.
The story was reported around the world, but originated with a Christian group in Finland that heard of the experimental drilling. As might be expected, this is an exaggeration that has compounded over the years.
3. The Crying Boy (UK)
In 1985 The Sun newspaper in Britain printed a story title 'Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy'. The Crying Boy in question was a painting by Giovanni Bragolin that was found in perfect condtion after a house had been burned inside out. What's more, a firefighter at the scene said he knew of numerous other fires where the 'Crying Boy' painting had been. An investigation was carried out, but not before panicked members of the public began throwing their paintings onto bonfires. Over 50,000 versions of the cursed painting had been sold at this point. The investigators found that the paintings were varnished with flame retardant and so survived the fires. Although this didn't explain why no other varnished paintings were turning up.
4. The Lucifer Statue (Philippines)
Satan standing triumphant over Angel Michael makes for an odd sight in the Catholic Philippines. This is the grave of Don Simeon Bernardo, who ordered the statue be placed there on his death in 1934. Bernardo was tortured and, as a result, didn't have particularly rosy view of the world.
The evil on display shocked residents, but it's just a statue - or is it?
Locals say the statue was initially much smaller than it currently is and has been growing over the years. Others say that the demon files off at night so the wrought iron cage has been places around the statue to keep it from escaping. The surprising truth is that the statue has grown, but in a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. Phone to vandalism due to its irreligious nature the damaged statue was replaced by a slightly larger version in the 1970s and protected from abuse by a large cage.
5. Kaala Bandar (India)
Fifteen years ago mass hysteria swept the city of Delhi in India. During a 5-day period, the terrifying Kala Bandar roamed the streets. It pounced on people in the middle of the night, gouging their arms and necks. Described as 4 feet tall, with the horrifying face of a chimp and bearing iron claws, it was given the nickname the 'Monkey-Man of Delhi'. One man even fell to his death when he thought he saw the Monkey-Man. Another eyewitness described the terrifying situation: "The creature had its hands on my tights when I woke up. When my mother picked up a broomstick, it jumped out of the balcony". No monkey, man or monkey-man was ever caught, but the legend of Kala Bandar lives on, frightening children.
6. Under The Bed (USA)
This is a classic from the USA, a teenage girl is home alone and starts to receive strange messages on to her phone. She keeps ignoring the messages and carries on watching TV, putting them out of her mind. When the messages become more threatening, she phone the police, who trace the messages and tell her that they are coming from within the house! Just a story, right? Well in 2014 one 16-year-old girl started receiving some pretty scary texts. But she thought it was all a joke. She went to bed and just before she fell asleep she received the text: "I'm in your house!" The man had broken in and was hiding underneath her bed. Thankfully though, the police caught him in time.
7. Sacamantecas (Spain)
In Spanish, Sacamantecas means 'fat extractor' and is a kind of disguised monster or drifter that steals the fat from children to feed on. The myth is thought to have begun with Spain's first recorded serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta. In the late 19th Century, Romasanta was convicted of killing 13 people. He rendered their fat in order to make high quality soap, which he then sold - along with the victims'clothes. Romasanta was only one of several people caught for selling human fat in this era and so the myth of the Sacamantecas was born and used to frighten children into behaving.
8. The Black Volga (Poland)
The Black Volga was a classic Russian car and signified wealth and status in the Soviet States during the Cold War. If one was ever seen stalking the Warsaw cith streets, people would flee because it was said that the people inside kidnapped children. No one ever saw who was driving them. One story suggested that the Soviet leader Brezhnev was mortally ill and requested the blood of children to keep his hold on the empire. The Volgas, which were associated with Soviet officials, went out to abduct children and drain them of their young blood. Other versions of the story described the blood being sold to wealthy Arabs to cure leukemia or spoke of vicars, nuns, Satanists, and even the devil driving the car and making children disappear.
9. El Chupacabra (Puerto Rico)
The goat-sucking, spiny and reptile-like Chupacabra was first seen in 1995 in Puerto Rico. This modern legendary beast is thought to drain the blood, vampire-like, from the livestock of Central and South American farmers. The uproar around the first sighting, in which 150 animals were killed, led to a year of weekly chupacabra hunts around Puerto Rico. To unearth the origin of this monster, Benjamin Radford of the Skeptical Inquirer tracked down Madelyne Tolentino, the woman who first reported seeing the creature. He had a hunch: there was a sci-fi B-Movie called 'Species' that featured a creature in the final act that was remarkably similar to her description.nWhat's more, Species was set in Puerto Rico, it came out in the weeks before the first Chupacabra sighting, and Madelyne Tolentino had watched it.
10. Kuchisake Onna (Japan)
Japan never fails to disappoint with creepy myths and ghosts. Kuchisake-Onna is the malicious spirit of a woman who wears a surgical mask. She appears and asks you: "Am I Pretty?" If you say no. she kills you on the spot. If you say yes, she removes her surgical mask to reveal the her mouth has been slit at the corners like The Joker, and then asks:"How about now?" If you say no, she cuts you in half. But if you say yes, she slits your mouth to look like hers. This tale caused widespread panic the the late 1970s. Schools arranged for students to walk home in groups because of their fear of being attracked by the ghost. There is even a rumor that a coroner's report from 1979 showed a woman who'd been hit by a car - in pursuit of a child who had her cheeks slit.
Sources: The Guardian, Live Science, Time, Snopes, 'Folklore and Journalism' (Dr.David Clarke), ABS-CBN News, The Chester Chronicle
5 CREEPIEST URBAN LEGENDS
5 UNSOLVED MYSTERIES WITH STRANGE WRITTEN CLUES
5 MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE WHO HAVE FINALLY BEEN IDENTIFIED
5 MOST TOXIC ABANDONED GHOST TOWNS ON EARTH10 CURSED OBJECTS AROUND THE WORLD SCIENCE CAN'T EXPLAIN
10 MYSTERIOUS PHOTOS AROUND THE WORLD THAT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED
AROUND THE WORLD TOP LIST
