15 Urban Legends That Turned Out to Be True
Stories that have been told for generations are often so strange or scary that they don't seem real. These stories are called urban tales. Many of them are just stories, but some are based on true events.
- Tricia Quitales
- 6 min read
Here, we will explore 15 urban legends that are based on true events, even though they sounded impossible. People thought these stories about strange happenings and disappearances were just myths until studies proved them to be true. Some are shocking, some are creepy, but all of them show that even the craziest stories can have real-life roots.
1. The “Kidnapped by the Ice Cream Truck” Legend
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Kids have been told for years that ice cream trucks are dangerous because thieves often use them as fronts. In 1994, there was a real case where an ice cream truck driver was arrested for stealing and beating up kids. This scary urban tale turned out to be a terrible truth, as several kids were able to escape and give evidence.
2. The “Secret Government Mind Control” Program
Caleb Oquendo
For a long time, the urban tale that the government was testing mind control on people in secret was thought to be a conspiracy theory. However, in the 1970s, it came to light that the CIA had done secret tests on mind control as part of a program called MKUltra. The fact that drugs and psychological tricks were used in these tests showed that the story had a dark truth to it.
3. The “Phantom Hitchhiker”
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Over the years, many reports have been made of a ghost hitchhiker showing up on lonely roads and disappearing before getting to their location. In 1959, a woman in Missouri picked up a young hitchhiker, but he disappeared from the trunk of her car. Many local stories were like this scary one, but in this case, the absence was later linked to a real accident from the past.
4. The “Poisoned Halloween Candy” Myth
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Parents have been told for years that strangers could poison Halloween candy, which causes fear every October. A man named Ronald Clark O’Bryan poisoned his own son’s Halloween candy in 1974, and the boy tragically died. This changed the scary story into a real event and made people fear tampered candy in real life.
5. The “Alligators in the Sewers” Story
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It has been said for a long time that alligators live in the sewers of big towns like New York. A real story from the 1930s said that a family flushed baby alligators down the toilet, and they grew up to be full-sized animals that lived in the sewers. A few alligators have been found in the drains, proving this story that was once brushed off.
6. The “Creepy Clown” Sightings
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In the 1980s and 1990s, stories about scary clowns hanging out in neighborhoods at night turned into a scary urban legend. There were, however, real reports of clowns acting strangely in different parts of the United States wayback 2016, which caused a lot of panic. The urban tale became true when police investigations showed that a group of people were dressing up as clowns to scare people.
7. The “Vanishing Hotel Room”
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People have stayed in hotels and then found that their room was “missing” the next day, for no clear reason. At the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles in 1964, a tourist was given a room number that didn’t have one. When it was found that the hotel had been linked to several disappearances and crimes over the years, the story took a darker turn.
8. The “Choking Victim” Rescue
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Many versions of the story have been told about a stranger helping someone who is choking, often in strange or unexplainable ways. A man who was choking in a restaurant was saved by an unknown customer who did something exactly that saved his life and then left before anyone could thank him. They were saved, and the rescue was caught on camera. This proved that the story was true.
9. The “Bloody Mary” Ritual
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For many years, people have shared stories about the “Bloody Mary” spirit, who is said to show up in a mirror when her name is called three times. There was a girl named Mary who had been in an accident and was found stuck in a bathroom mirror in 2001. In the end, this creepy encounter was tied to a real event in which a young woman died in a terrible accident.
10. The “Phone Call from the Dead”
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For years, people have said that they got a phone call from a loved one who has died. In 2004, a family who had lost a loved one got a call on their dead relative’s cell phone, which had been turned off for weeks. The call was tracked to a nearby graveyard, which made the story even scarier.
11. The Mafia
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Reports went around for decades that a mafia threw bodies down sewers, where alligators supposedly ate them. The body parts of a person were found in 1980 near a New York sewer system. The body had been dumped there by criminal groups. The investigation proved that the urban tale was based on true events involving organized crime.
12. The “Woman in the Trunk” Story
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Many people believe that a woman was locked in the trunk of her car by a stranger and only got out when the car was stopped in a remote area. In 2003, a woman who had been kidnapped was found trapped in the trunk of a car. She was later saved by police. This kidnapping in real life was eerily similar to the scary story that had been told for years.
13. The “Kidney Theft” Scam
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For a long time, the story of people waking up in an icy shower to find that their kidneys had been taken was thought to be made up. In the late 1990s, there were several accounts of people whose kidneys had been stolen by criminal gangs after they had been drugged. It turned out that this scary urban tale was actually true.
14. The “Rats in the Pizza” Incident
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For years, there was a story going around that rats were being hidden in pies and sold to customers in some places. In 2007, a video showed a pizza cook putting live rats on a pizza before giving it to a customer. The diner was closed after the video was looked into, showing that the scary urban legend was based on real events.
15. The “Licked Hand” Story
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A girl thought she heard her dog licking her hand in the middle of the night, but the next morning, she found a killer hiding under her bed. This became a famous urban legend. There was a case of a woman being attacked by a serial killer in 1959 while she thought her dog was licking her hand. The scary link to real life proved this story wasn’t just a scary myth.