[OT] Local or Urban Legends

[WayneLigon]

That's interesting...I guess I just assumed that the clown was a ripoff from that Steven King movie..."IT."

It's also probable that it was simple hysteria from the (then) recent revelation of John Wayne Gacey's (who did kid's parties dressed as a clown) secret life as a rapist and child murderer (the excavations under his house began in Dec 1979 or Jan 1980). Perhaps much the same way that a wave of 'Satanic Panic' crossed over parts of the US in the early 1990's.

Looking for some stuff on Mysterious America, which I must now purchase, I found these musings and thought 'man, that's a great idea for a game'.

Talking about the sightings of mysterious or geographically inappropriate animals in America (such as the Florida panthers), one improbable suggestion made was that the creatures came from a wrecked circus train or escaped from a circus. What if they were not the only things at a circus yearning to be free....?

This got me to thinking. Suppose, just for a moment, that exotic animals weren't the only escapees from these phantom circus train wrecks. Perhaps some clowns got out along with all the kangaroos and panthers and baboons. After all, clowns aren't really human, are they? Clowns are a breed apart, a separate, non-human species. That's kind of the idea about clowns, isn't it? Who is to say that clowns actually want to be entertaining laughing audiences? Maybe they want to escape just as much as the wild animals do. They could be hiding out there in the dark woods at the edge of town right now, whole clown societies, like tramps in a hobo jungle, obeying their own clown laws, following their secret clown agenda, planning, waiting for the right moment to strike and reek [sic] clown havoc.

I wonder: what did those Phantom Clowns want with those kids back in '81? Raw recruits? Something worse? And what of the sad tramp, Emmet Kelly-style clowns? Could this be evidence of cross-breeding with their hobo counterparts? I shudder to think what more could be going on out there in the wilderness amongst the tangled weeds and gnarled trees, hiding in the darkness.

 

[The_Universe]

Mysterious America?

what is this "Mysterious America?" Please, elaborate! Is it a book? A movie? How would one purchase it? Game resources are always nice...

 

[The_Universe]

D@mned clowns

And I'd have to agree that clowns can hardly be considered human...what with their wee, beedy eyes...and their blue hair...BLUE AS THE NIGHT!

 

[Bjorn Doneerson]

I believe one of the first alien abduction stories is from my area. Betty something-or-other in 1967, I think.

And my friend swears there's a crashed alien spacecraft in a nearby resevoir, but he has a tendency of getting stories wrong and I've never heard the claim made by anyone else.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

We have a couple of legends around here.

The Golden Carriage of the Wareswald

The forest Wares had once held a roman settlement (and they are excavating in that). There's a legend that there is a carriage of gold buried somewhere in that forest. It hasn't been dug out because that isn't easy, according to the local legend: on top of finding it, you have to dig it out under certain circumstances (I don't know them all, but I think it involves a full moon and, most important, you may not speak a single word or it will sink again into the ground). Of course, legend holds that some guys have almost dug it out once, but then someone uttered some enthusiastic "yes" or something like that, and it sank again.


Also, a nearby mountain (Schaumberg, "Mt. Foam") holds some ruins of a castle or fortification - all what's left is a part of a wall. It is said that at midnight, the wall opens and will-o'-wisps come out, roaming the mountain and returning a little while later.

A little farther away, we have a pond (AFAIK rather big for a pond, no 10-ft fish pond people have in their gardens. Somewhere between pond and lake in size) which has been known to claim several people - including good swimmers, and there have been eye witnesses to these drownings. They tried to drain the pond, but it never succeeded. Probably it has some inlet and outlet below the surface (the area is/was heavily mined for coal, and some of the abandoned tunnels might have become outlets for the pond.) Anyway, none of the bodies were ever retrieved.

 

[Iamwomanseemegame]

Tropical Midwest...

Mitchell, SD is a small city with a few good urban legends/unsolved mysteries...

First...

There is a fairly large (disgusting) lake called-- get this-- Lake Mitchell. It is the source of all Mitchell's drinking water and yet, they still allow all water sports (boating, jet skiing... anything). It is also the site of a whole lot of drainage for local farms so-- not only is the lake full of oil and gas, it's full of various pesticides... the water is a nasty shade of green and will turn your skin colors if you choose to swim in it.
The first of the stories involving the lake is one that I know to be totally true: A young boy (little brother of a very close friend of mine) was fishing off of the dock. Generally, all you can catch in Mitchell Lake are bullheads and the occasional snapping turtle. However, this young man reeled in a very strange fish... It was a white and gold tropical fish that shouldn't even have been alive because it was in fresh water.
No one really knows how on earth the fish got there-- but ever since the young man caught that particular fish, there has been, at least once a year, an individual that reels in some sort of fish that would typically thrive in a reef-y type of ocean setting.
Could have been someone dumping a fish tank, I guess... but, I don't know. Very weird.

Second...

There is a phantom puma that supposedly lives around the lake/in the surrounding trees. I, myself. have never seen it. Many say they hear it howl/scream/whatever it is that pumas do.

Not related to the lake...

Mitchell, SD is also home to a bizarre series of underground tunnels just big enough for a man or woman to crawl through... many large enough to walk in. I have explored the tunnels a little... probably traveling about 1/2-3/4 of a mile into them before chickening out and running back to the safety of daylight. Rumor has it, somewhere in those expansive tunnels is a hide-out originally created by a.) a bunch of teenagers in the 70's or b.) crazy murderer linked to some killings at the train depot.

Finally, in Sioux Falls South Dakota, several years ago, a young woman was murdered. They eventually found her killer but, never found the body (I believe that her murderer killed himself in prison a year or two back)...
But, her killer, before his arrest, worked for John Morrell (sp?) at a large plant in South Dakota. JM makes bacon, sausage and all that kind of good stuff... and, many think that he disposed of his victims body in one of the meat grinders at the JM plant. By the time he was found and convicted, it had been over a year since his victims death and so, there was no way to tell if indeed that is what had actually happened because, the meat she would have been ground with had been packaged and sold quite some time ago. Pretty nasty.

There are the legends that surround my home town in podunk SD... enjoy!!

--LizzyB

 

[Kesh]

Oh, come on. We all know that those were Killer Klowns from Outer Space!

So, here's a few urban legends from Ohio:

1) My hometown of South Point had an area called Tallow Ridge. Just a little backwoods spot up in the hills. People have been seeing strange things there for years, including 'bigfoot'-like creatures, will-o-wisps, and strange figures dressed in robes travelling deep into the woods. No one wants to venture close to the woods around Halloween, as there are supposedly Satanic/whatever rituals being performed. Of course, they say people have disappeared trying to investigate these sightings, but I don't know of any actual cases of that.

The weirdest Tallow Ridge rumor involved Alestair Crowley. Supposedly, he declared that Tallow Ridge was one point on a pentagram that formed over the globe (based on mystic points he had 'researched'). According to this rumor, he had planned to enter a church in nearby Ironton, OH, and proclaim a challenge against God himself... but Mr. Crowley died a few days before he made the trip.

2) Dayton, OH is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. On this base is the famous Hangar 18. Supposedly, after the Roswell crash, all the confiscated UFOs/parts were put on trucks and taken to Hangar 18 for study and storage. Years later, Area 51 was established and the ships were moved to that location, though some of the less interesting parts were kept in Hangar 18 for storage purposes.

The best use of this rumor was the old War of the Worlds TV show, where a military figure took them to Hangar 19 to stop an alien from stealing an intact Martian war machine. After all, "What better way to divert attention, than to let people get close, but still be wrong!"

3) Middle-to-northern Ohio has vast cornfields.

Kids watch Stephen King's Children of the Corn.

Do the math.

4) Again, South Point supposedly had a church used by Satanists. In fact, a close friend of mine said her aunt was a member of said church. These aren't the "sacrifice a kitten on the altar" Satanists, but closer to Anton LeVey's brand of Satanism. i.e. Do whatever makes you powerful in this life, in exchange for your soul in the afterlife.

5) Berea College in Kentucky has a girl's dorm that's supposedly haunted. Girls sometimes hear someone running up and down the stairs and through the halls late at night, but when they open the door, no one's there. Supposedly, a member of the girl's track team used to jog up and down the stairs and hallways for practice, until she was killed on campus, decades ago.

{Edited to fix a city. Can't believe I wrote Toledo while thinking of Dayton. Toledo is so much more boring! }

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Man, I have a small story, but it's going to look really dull next to all these strange disappearances, odd sightings, and ghost stories.

Anyway, my hometown is Davenport, Iowa. One local legend revolves around our black squirrels. It's said that Count Fejervary, who now has a park, pool, and children's zoo named after him, brought them with him (from Germany I think), about a hundred years ago. I used to think black squirrels were as normal as brown and gray, but then I had a friend over from out of town and she was amazed by the black squirrels... Go figure.

 

[Tonguez]

Lots and Lots of Legends around here but best known is probably the Hoofman. - A Hitchhiker on the Desert Road often dressed in a long coat who will get a ride and when he gets off you will see that he has hooves instead of feet! (My grandmother reckons she picked him up once).

Also a few stories of 'giant wildmen' in the hills, one story says that they got hold of a guy who wondered into the bush one night and dumped him down a long drop.

Then theres the nineheaded eel and the log that floats up stream
oh and the Madonna in the waterfall and lots of ghost and... and ...

In and around Auckland, there are a lot of tunnels, bunkers and gunt turrets, dug during WW2 in case the Japanese tried to invade.

Supposedly, somewhere under Devonport there's a underground chamber, secretly connected to the defense tunnels. It's rumoured to contain American WW1-era bombers in storage. Although some more outlandish tales mention chemical wepaon stockpiles.

I've been down into the tunnels under Hobson Street

and don't forget the secret NSA surveilance center under Devonport too *hey whose that knocking on my door at 4am?*


***** END TRANSMISSION****

There is no NSA base at Devonport. Thank You

 

[blackshirt5]

Lesse; there's the Gates of Hell in Scotch Plains; it's a tunnel off the road(I think it's a drainage tunnel or something) that extends very far; rumors of satanic activity as well as an unkown protector called Red-Eyed Jack or something that throws rocks at you if you try to enter and he sees you; all you can see are his large red eyes looking over the overhang near the tunnel as he whips small rocks at your head.

I'm sure I'll think of more later on.