[OT] Local or Urban Legends

[Bran Blackbyrd]

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),

I could easily see that as being a factor in the hysteria. If the movie The Exorcist freaked people out as badly as it did, then one would have to assume that revelations of a real life serial murderer would unsettle the public at least as much.
Coming out of the 70's it seems like there were a lot of serial killer incidents, (Son of Sam, Gacey, etc.) combine that with the satanic scare and you have a potent breeding ground for public hysteria. D&D's bad rep may have just been a result of the times.

Mysterious America is an interesting book. I picked an older copy up from my library a while back; now I'm going to have to buy a current copy and see what's lurking in the added chapters.

Ohio seems to have it's fair share of mysterious animal sightings. Bigfoot, the Kenmore Grassman, gamers, and ABCs (Alien Big Cats). It hasn't been that long since we had a panther flap here in the Alliance/Marlboro area.

FYI: Mysterious panthers and lions showing up in areas where they shouldn't are sometimes referred to as Alien Big Cats because; A.) Their presence in a particular area is alien, B.) they don't usually behave the way an animal of that type does (notably overly-aggressive behavior, attacking moving vehicles), C.) Strange big cat sightings very frequently coincide with UFO sightings in the same area.
The same connection has been drawn between bigfoot sightings and UFOs. I found that part of the book particularly creepy.

The_Universe:
Mysterious America is a book about some of the strange animals and phenomena that have been witnessed across the US. It can be purchased at Amazon in paperback for 16.95 and as a PDF (I had no idea!) for 7.95. I imagine any local bookstore would be happy to order any of these books for you as well.
Loren Coleman has written a number of books, including ones about cryptozoology and the Mothman. Just follow the link. He has links right on the front page to where you can buy his books.

I don't get it, no hardback?
The book would definitely make a good resource for strip-mining game ideas. I plan on trying my hand at making stats for my own take on the ABCs for D20M.
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Croutons? ROFL!

 

[The_Universe]

cool

THANKS!

 

[blackshirt5]

Man o man, am I gonna have to draw on this and the other thread for my Call of Cthulhu game when I run it.

 

[Maraxle]

What about Oliver the Humanzee? He was eventually found to be a regular chimp, but the story is good.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

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

Heh. Yeah, and doing a search on killer clowns is useless because all you get are links about this movie!

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

Ah Wright-Patterson... The stories you hear about that place.

The Haunted Ohio books by Chris Woodyard are a good source of "true" Ohio Ghost Stories. No boogie men or sasquatch though.

There is a place not far from where I live that quite a few teens looking for a scare head to. Traveling down the road buildings begin to become more sparse, it's quite loneley out there. Eventually you pass The Last Church of Christ (if that doesn't sound ominous, what does?) and soon turn onto Legend Road. The name is probably what draws people.
Legend Road is a twisting dirt road surrounded by claustophobia inducing woods. The trees are right on top of the road. At night you can stick your hand out of the car window and feel the temperature suddenly drop when you turn onto the road. It's almost always foggy there at night. Suddenly the fog gives way and you see on your left a set of large tanks, for oil I think. There are three of them and the center tank supposedly contains a gate to hell. It has a rusty inverted pentagram and 666 on it, put there by pranksters I'm sure. Supposedly the tanks are painted over but the writing always comes back. How something so goofy as a gate to hell in an oil tank ends up a part of so many urban legends I do not know.
Further down the road is a small church with an equally small cemetary beside it. The headstones mostly date from the 17-1800s and the writing is faded on most of them. Like the rest of Legend Road, the church is totally surrounded with trees. Over the door there is a semicircular piece of wood where there used to be stained glass. Letters on the wood spell out "Wildwood Chapel".
All sorts of things have been said about this church and what goes on in it, but I'd say none of it is true. You know how urban legends start...
Supposedly people have seen bigfoot type creatures out there (some even say werewolves, pfft). They probably see lots of beer out there too. The woods are dead quite at night except for the occasional cracking twig noises coming from just inside, which are unsettling for anyone standing near the trees. If you've ever seen a show about bigfoot and heard the recordings of the unidentified howl/scream that some think might be made by the creature, well, you hear that out there too sometimes.
Many people have gone there at night and claim to have been chased away by people in pickups and vans. I don't doubt it. It's probably the locals trying to protect the church from vandalism. In fact, it's illegal to be in a cemetary at night around here.
things seem to have settled down out there since the road was paved.
Personally, I don't think there's anything going on out there except teens that aren't familiar with the area going there because they think it's spooky; but this thread is about urban legends, and the aptly named Legend Road is a good example of how a little spooky ambiance and some teens who want to be scared can come together to create a persistant myth.

Besides, everyone knows the gate to hell was at the the front door of my high school.

 

[The_Universe]

Oliver seems more like fodder for the weekly world news, or something...oh well. It IS a good story!

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I live right next to the Santa Ana river in Norco and go to school at UC Riverside. Somewhat not very well known is the Riverside Frog/Lizard Man.

Hey, has this guy been seen at all since Wetzel saw him in '58? Interesting aside, recounted in Loren Coleman's MYSTERIOUS AMERICA: in Minnesota in November of 1958 (same bat-time) *another* guy named Charles Wetzel met an erratic kangaroo.

Springfield, Louisiana. It's about a twenty minute drive from where I live.

Hey...not in Springfield, but De*something*...DeQuincy? There was that mysterious roadkill thing that looked for all the world like a baboon in like '96. Ever hear anything about that?

Anyway, I've got several around here.

This one can be confirmed through several books, newspaper accounts, etc. In the 1920s...1926, methinks, a guy was killed in York County (some others on this board will probably know this as well), a guy named Nelson Rehmeyer. Rehmeyer was supposedly a hexerei, or witch. Several other local people became convinced that Rehmeyer had laid a curse on them. A local "wise woman" told them to beat up Rehmeyer and destroy his copy of his witch-book. So they did, but took it one step further...Rehmeyer was (as I've heard this story from my grandma and my great-aunts and stuff, who grew up in the area) beaten to death, tarred and feathered, and scalped. Then his house was burned. AFAIK, the guilty guys went to jail or were hung. That much is fact. Supposedly, the area surrounding Rehmeyer's old home is haunted, I've heard vague rumors of cattle mutilation.

There's definitely been many reports of Bigfoot in southern York County and northern Maryland. Also, Columbia (my hometown) wasn't exempt from the 1973 UFO sighting flaps.

There is (was, rather, it was burned down by arson about 7 years back) an old decrepit mansion by the river that looked for all the world like the house in Salem's Lot. Anyhow, it was a nursing home for a long time, but previous to that was built in the early 1800s by a German immigrant as a stopping point for canal workers. Rumor has it that many of the guests vanished in the night.

We also have local legends of the albatwitches, which are variously described as little monkeys or, more commonly, gnomes. They were like little goblins, doing mischievous things around the house, and were fond of stealing apples and taking clothes off of washlines which they wore around. Still some sightings supposedly, a co-worker swears up and down they saw a little guy in a tree down near the river (where the albatwitches hung out).

Chickies Rock, a large hill/cliff north of town, supposedly has two haunts. One is a weird apparition - a mummy that lurches around, with two knives stuck in its head. The other is Robert Herr, a highwayman who stashed his money at Chickies. Supposedly it's still there, and Herr is still guarding it, though he's been dead over 100 years.

The Circle Creek Campground is supposedly haunted by a headless guy, who's supposed to be an early settler who set traps for Indians and was a victim of his own trap.

We also have a gravestone, a large carving of an angel, in Mount Bethel Cemetery (across the street from my house!) that supposedly animates in the moonlight. Never seen that.

And finally, one I can vouch for - a guy was supposedly riding home from a tavern one night in the 1700s, drunk, and fell off his horse hitting his head on a rock and dying instantly. At night, you can hear the hoofbeats of his horse in the road, and then an abrupt scream. There's two versions of this story, or rather two placements. One is on Lancaster Avenue, and the other is actually outside of town, near Ironville. That's the one I'm more inclined to believe, as my ex lived right along the road he supposedly died on. And at night, I'll vouch that you do hear what sounds like the clop-clop of hooves on the road.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

What about Oliver the Humanzee? He was eventually found to be a regular chimp, but the story is good.

I actually wouldn't bet on it - don't rule out new subspecies. I was into cryptozoology and stuff for years, and Oliver was one of my main cases I was interested in. Basically, there's been a number of other chimps in zoos that display similar traits like bipedalism, higher intelligence, etc. In Africa, they're usually called ufiti or koolakamba, and lots of cryptozoologists wonder if there's another chimp subspecies. Oliver could be one of these.

Remember, the onza was found to be "just a mountain lion", too. And there's consistent evidence (i.e., photos of several different specimens) that mark it as VERY different physically than a simple cougar.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Third post: about MYSTERIOUS AMERICA. A fine book (as are most of Coleman's). If you notice, in the newest edition (with the giant fish on the front), I'm mentioned in the 'Thanks' section. I told Loren about the giant snake sightings at Devil's Den in Gettysburg.

 

[blackshirt5]

Man, Gable, I've gotta come out to Lancaster and get you to show me some of these places! When my family went on vacation there when I was younger, I never knew there was cool stuff in Lancaster!