Local Legends

[Xenomit]

Do any of you live in/ come from a place that has local myths and legends?

My hometown of crossett has two legends, a really well known one and one that only locals know about; you're gonna hear some inside shit!

The first one is one that people all over the nation have heard about, the Crossett Light. It's basically a weird light that no one can explain. Several small research teams have checked it out, and as of far, no cause for the light has been fingered. Many say it could be swamp gas, which has been proven wrong time and time again as swamp gas doesn't exist in the entire area it's at, and many others have said that it's lights from the cars on a nearby highway, but that's just as unlikely as it can be seen when there aren't cars for miles around, and people have been seeing it since the early 1900's when almost no one who lived anywhere near crossett owned a car. I've seen it myself, and it's really cool how no matter when you show up at night, you can see the light. No one can get close to it because as you approach the light, it simply "wanders" away.

The second one is way less interesting and only half the people who live hear know about it. So basically, there's a river that flows through the region called the Saline river. There's also the third largest paper mill in North America, Georgia Pacific; the area Crossett is in is really well known for having the best forests for lumber milling, the pine trees are some of the fastest growing in the world and there are thousands of acres of them. Georgia Pacific produces tons (literally tons) of toxic waste from the papermaking process, and they run all the toxic waste through a plume and into the saline river; there's been a documentary and a large article in the washington post about the huge cancer rates in the communities along that toxic plume, with west crossett being right beside it. Arkansas' rivers are well known for having some of the biggest alligator gar in North America, and they are unbelievably common in the area where Crossett is. Now, the legend is that in the saline river lives a massive super-gar roughly 10 feet long. Very few people claim to have ever even seen it, and I'm one of those people. I saw it jump out of the river when I was about 12, it scared the fucking shit out of me and I haven't been in a river since. Most people who know about it assume that it's the result of a bloodline of gars living near the area where the toxic waste dumps into the river, growing larger each generation. It's goddamn scary, and I know for a fact that it's real on account of having seen it myself.

Do any of you know of any legends unique to your respective home-town?

[Boomstick]

Tiger Woods went to my Jr. High School and High School. That's pretty much all I can think of on the spot.

[Darthdenim]

Only one I know of is the Michigan Dogman.

Although the alleged sightings happened clear on the other side of the mitten.

[Darthdenim]

Also, the Paul Bunyan story has strong ties to Michigan.

Although that's more of a folk tale than a legend, I guess.

[Atlas]

Some people believe Jack The Ripper lived near Pittsburgh.

Another is Charlie No-Face. "Raymond "Ray" Robinson (October 29, 1910 – June 11, 1985) was a severely disfigured man whose years of nighttime walks made him into a figure of urban legend in western Pennsylvania. Robinson was so badly injured in a childhood electrical accident that he could not go out in public without fear of creating a panic, so he went for long walks at night. Local residents, who would drive along his road in hopes of meeting him, called him The Green Man or Charlie No-Face. They passed on tales about him to their children and grandchildren, and people raised on these tales are sometimes surprised to discover that he was a real person who was liked by his family and neighbors." That is what happened but people said he was a ghost with a glowing green face so he became a legend.

[yurgenburgen]

Legend has it that the city of Bradford in England (where I am from) used to not be a total shithole

[kazumazkan]

As the story goes, the old highway here in Southeast Texas which is called Sara Jane Road by local residents, is haunted by the ghost of Sara Jane and her baby. Legend has it that in Civil War times Sara Jane's husband was fighting in the war and it was just herself and her newborn that lived in a house out in the woods on this highway along the Neches River. Word got to her that Union soldiers were on their way to her house, so she placed her baby in a wicker basket and set the basket under the wooden bridge that was near her house. She then returned to the house and hung herself from a tree out front. If you stand on the bridge at midnight you can see a light flickering out in the woods that looks like a light of an old lantern and you can hear Sara Jane's moans & hollers, as she is looking for her baby that she left under the bridge. Some people say that on certain nights like Halloween or Friday the 13th you can actually see the ghost of Sara Jane wandering the woods with her lantern in search of her baby.

copy n paste

you can google Sara Jean Road

[kazumazkan]

As the story goes, the old highway here in Southeast Texas which is called Sara Jane Road by local residents, is haunted by the ghost of Sara Jane and her baby. Legend has it that in Civil War times Sara Jane's husband was fighting in the war and it was just herself and her newborn that lived in a house out in the woods on this highway along the Neches River. Word got to her that Union soldiers were on their way to her house, so she placed her baby in a wicker basket and set the basket under the wooden bridge that was near her house. She then returned to the house and hung herself from a tree out front. If you stand on the bridge at midnight you can see a light flickering out in the woods that looks like a light of an old lantern and you can hear Sara Jane's moans & hollers, as she is looking for her baby that she left under the bridge. Some people say that on certain nights like Halloween or Friday the 13th you can actually see the ghost of Sara Jane wandering the woods with her lantern in search of her baby.

she returns to the Bridge saw that the baby was gone she grieved and then went to commit suicide*

[Cyberdevil]

At 1/17/14 11:53 PM, Xenomit wrote: Do any of you live in/ come from a place that has local myths and legends?

Not a single one! :(

[Twone]

At 1/18/14 12:01 AM, Addict wrote: The strangest thing I've seen him do (and I'm being 100% completely serious) is whenever I went to McDonald's late one night, and he appeared to be having a normal conversation in one of the booths, but nobody but his backpack was sitting right across from him.

That's fucking nuts. Do you think it just fucked with his brain, or is he just perpetually high all the time?

[ManDeep]

Some dude from my hometown once fucked a sheep when he was drunk. Not sure, but it's probably true though.

[Zhon]

"Red Creek" Supposedly got its name because during the revolution the entire creek running through the village ran red with blood.

Squirrel Man - not a legend I guess since he's real. He tames squirrels on campus and hangs out with them all the time. Graduated a few semesters before me but I've seen him around a couple of times after that.

[Little-Kinky]

Connecticut is apparently well-known for hauntings and such.

One "legend" that's pretty much only known to a small group of people in my town is a, well, werewolf type thing that is seen on the roads that go through the mountains/hills.

Sound sketchy, and it is. But my sister claims she was driving with her boyfriend, and it was standing in the middle of the road. Just before she hit it, it disappeared, then appeared at the driver-side window staring angrily at them as they continued to drive.

Creepy. Other people have seen it, too. Ha, they refuse to drive around there anymore.

[mandog]

If you walk alone at night, a van of Paki's will stalk you and eventually come out with knuckle dusters and beat you up, most likely to stop children wandering at night.

[Viper]

We got some thing similar to Bigfoot near where I live.
Not giving out a name because if you look it up on Google it says the town where I live in like every article.

[MrPlinkett]

There are some 1800s gold mines that have been haunted for centuries a couple miles from where I live

[VonZylo]

There is a graveyard where near where I grew up. The biggest gravestone in the yard is for a child’s plot and has a small statue of lamb on top of it. This gravestone is also near the road and is visible when you drive by it. I know there is a story of the child but for the life of me I can’t remember it.

However if you live in the area you know that the lamb on the gravestone moves. It moves when no one is around and it faces the road after something happens to people in the neighborhood. A barn burnt down, a person died, ect. Generally thing associated with lost. Then a few weeks later the lamb statue will move again, this time being parallel to the road (it’s direction is often random, it could be either facing up the road or down the road).

Eventually a couple of ghost hunters were looking for ghost stories in my area and people told him of this one. He and his team did get up on a ladder to reach the statue and found that it can indeed rotate. So this was not something physically impossible. However rotating the lamb takes muscle, apparently, and it is unlikely that the wind would change the direction it is facing. Also it takes a lot of effort to get to and turn the statue, and it would seem difficult for someone to do that has a prank, for years and years, and to never get caught doing it.

[Stereocrisis]

Cool thread idea. It got me investigating, and HOLY SHIT.

This is a website dedicated to strange happenings, and local legends in, or surrounding the area I live in.

http://www.greenvilleparanormal.com/legend-tripping.html

[Stereocrisis]

The street I live on has a historical cemetery. The people my street was named after are actually buried here.

Here is some more information on it:

HISTORICAL CEMETERY #: WO012 BARTLETT LOT

Location: South of BARTLETT ST AT MENDON RD.
16 burials with 13 inscriptions from 1822 to 1858.
75 ft x 50 ft in poor condition no enclosure; sign in fair condition.
Tax Assessor's file # 2, acct. # 33-00550. Plat #: 50g Lot #: 6
NOTE: Off Mendon Road. Many stones down, broken, or missing. Extensively overgrown with weeds, briars and trees.
Some filling by neighbors. Neighbor dumping washing machine waste into cemetery. Number of burials is an estimate.

LOL For the record, I'm not the neighbor who dumped the washing machine in it.

[KatMaestro]

We have a tunnel monster legend that crazy cryptozoologists love to bring up. And I love this one, our largest park in the city is somehow haunted.

[jhypsyshah]

I ive in a neighborhood that was a camp during WWI, housed a lot of dead and dying soldiers. There are huge caverns that run underneath it, from the zoo to the air port. I've heard ghost stories from multiple generations. Sometimes people move in and reportedly see the same apparitions I've heard of since I was a kid, 3 genrations ago.

Supposedly the whole camp was quarantined, due to several epidemics. No one on base ever left after a certain point, anyone who got in making a delivery couldn't leave. Everything was supposedly just buried and abandoned for a long time afterwards.

As far as Old Louisville goes, I believe it has the largest Victorian neighborhood (or something like that) in the nation. So lots of ghost stories. A ghost train being one of them, supposedly a trolley, lots of ghost stories here from the locals. I lived there off and on for years and seen some stuff I can't explain. Most of the people I knew down there did too. It wasn't uncommon for neighbors and a car load of people to see the same stuff consistently.

Not far is Waverly Hills, some of ya may of heard about that one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverly_Hills_Sanatorium

It's an old sanitarium for TB outbreak. More ghost stories.

We have a goat man in our local lore here as well, supposedly by an old trussel, if I recall right.

I dig some ghost stories. XD

[Entice]

Legend has it that the drive-through smoke shop is open 24 hours a day, but no one's ever managed to sit inside it for 24 hours

[yetanotherjohn]

There is a legend about a ghost that was haunting a local hillside after being decapitated in a crash that happened in the mid- 50's. Apparently, some paranormal investigators allowed her to cross over to the other side in 2008.

Another legend in a nearby city is that their park has a vortex at a certain spot, which can make people disappear, and reappear(or not).

[saltovergray]

Little myth about a ghost that hangs out on the upper floor of the high school in town.

As far as actual "legends" go, Tommy Glavine recently was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he grew up in my town not too far from my house.

[mechadude32]

Read weird New Jersey, up by me, I have the Witch's Tree and table, the Cave Grave, and Shades of Death Road (real street name, look it up)

The Witch's tree has a hook on the back of it, knock it three times at midnight on Halloween, three witches will come out and rip you up with three hooks.

If you lay down and read the inscriptions on the Witch's Table, at midnight on Halloween, you are never heard from again. You go missing, basically.

Legend has it, two little children got lost in a cave playing hide 'n' seek. Their older brother went in there too, and got lost. Eventually, towards the night, the parents go looking for the children, and get lost. The town is so scared of these events, they seal up the cave and have a plague with all the victims names. (Real)

Shades of Death road has a fuck ton of creepy shit. Google it.

[Viper]

At 1/18/14 06:12 PM, mechadude32 wrote: Read weird New Jersey, up by me, I have the Witch's Tree and table, the Cave Grave, and Shades of Death Road (real street name, look it up)

That Shades of Death Road sounds kinda cool (looked it up).
You also have Wendigos all along the Atlantic Coast....remember that.
Be lucky you don't have to deal with Perytons though. They're stag with wings colored like peacocks. And they kill people.

[Little-Kinky]

Just to add a bit more, the most well-known ghosts/hauntings and such that I know of would be...

In a nearby town, there is a "lady in white" that is often seen standing in the middle of roads, having cars hit her/go through her. I haven't seen her myself, so I don't know about that one.

Every single cemetery in my town is haunted. A small one way on the outskirts of town has a little girl that plays in it, the largest one has a variety of ghosts that hang around, and all the smaller ones have at least one, or odd things that happen in them.

[kisame]

We have Chupacabras.

Texass>Your state.

[Metraff]

Before he died, Iowa Blackie owned a house here, though he never slept in it.

Also, there's this insane guy in my town named Bob Shot. He genuinely thinks he was in the military until they kicked him out because he was "too good". Says he's been running from the FBI ever since. If you ask him about it or tell him you saw a dude in a black suit around the corner, he'll threaten to break your knee caps. He french kisses his dog outside the public pool.

[Viper]

At 1/18/14 09:22 PM, Metraff wrote: Also, there's this insane guy in my town named Bob Shot. He genuinely thinks he was in the military until they kicked him out because he was "too good". Says he's been running from the FBI ever since. If you ask him about it or tell him you saw a dude in a black suit around the corner, he'll threaten to break your knee caps. He french kisses his dog outside the public pool.

Sounds like either someone who ate too many paint chips as a baby.
Or Wriggle when he finds out how to time travel....