People Are Sharing The Scariest Local Legends From Their Hometowns & They Will HORRIFY You

The full title of this one is the Bandage Man of Cannon Beach — Cannon Beach being a small coastal city located in northwest Oregon. According to writer and Oregonian Jon Abernathy’s examination of the legend, the Bandage Man is said to hang out on a section of road that connects Cannon Beach to U.S. Highway 101, “between the town and where Highway 26 intersects with 101.”He supposedly vanishes before you get to Cannon Beach proper... although whether or not you actually experience the vanishing yourself probable depends on whether or not he’s, uh, killed you.

The Chupacabra — a cryptid that hunts and brutally kills animals and has a particular fondness for livestock (not for nothing is it known as “the goat sucker”) — certainly gets around; according to other commenters in the thread, the legend also exists in places like New Mexico, California, and even North Carolina. Its origins, however, are in Latin America; it’s usually cited as a Puerto Rican legend. According to Animal Planet, the first accounts of Chupacabra attacks appeared in the 1960s.

Every summer camp has its own Jason Voorhees, apparently…

…Except the camp that actually served as Camp Crystal Lake in the first Friday The 13th film.

Whomp, whomp.

Gold Camp Road is in Colorado — but the legend is usually claimed by San Antonio, Texas. That version got posted as a comment further down the thread, too:

Neither place is the true origin of the story, though. According to Snopes, the real-life incident that inspired the legend actually happened in Salt Lake City in 1938. Like the Chupacabra, this one is well-traveled.

Cars will actually move uphill in some locations associated with this genre of legend, by the way, but it’s just the result of a gravity hill illusion — not ghosts.

Located about 20 miles north of Austin in the city of Round Rock, Texas, Hairy Man Road actually has a continuing legend attached to it beyond the origin story told in this comment: According to Weird U.S., people traveling along the road long after the Hairy Man’s death have reported seeing “a large, very hairy man lurking in the bushes and overgrowth.”

The Hairy Man festivals sound fun; in 2017, the Cat Hollow one consisted of a 5K fun run and a “Spookyfest” featuring Hairy Man photo ops.

Sylvania, Ohio plays host to Gibbs Bridge (which I’ve also seen stylized as Gibb’s Bridge and Gibb’s Road Bridge), which is allegedly super haunted… although no really seems to know why or by what. Is it the result of a tragic car crash? Or a motorcycle crash? Something else? It’s anybody’s guess. Ghost hunters seem to love the place, though.

To be fair, the Church of Satan has done some pretty rad things recently.

Hey, guess what? This story is well-known enough to have its very own Wikipedia page! Also known as the Light of Saratoga, the Bragg Road Ghost Light is the name given to a mysterious light that sometimes appears in the Big Thicket area of Southeast Texas. Its appearances seem to be random, and its disappearances come without warning. My guess is that it’s actually the result of swamp gas or something, but it’s super weird all the same. There’s apparently a similar light in Chapel Hill, Tenn., according to another commenter.

The road itself, by the way, takes its name from the railroad town that once occupied the area. But Bragg doesn’t exist anymore; it’s a literal ghost town. It adds a nice touch to the story, don't you think?

Wow. That is some story. Atlas Obscura’s entry on itis magnificent, so I’ll send you over there for more info, but… wow. I want to go to Denver just to see Blucifer now. I wonder if he watches The Good Place, or...?

Gotta love a good Eldritch Location. This trope pops up frequently in horror stories; I suspect it’s a relative of the old urban legend in which a girl goes to fetch a doctor for her mother, who has fallen ill while they were on vacation together, only to arrive back at her hotel to find her mother gone and the hotel staff insisting that she was never there. For a similar story in the creepypasta hall of fame, check out “Extra Ketchup” by Christopher Howard “Slimebeast” Wolf.

It hasn’t been proven that a serial killer has been at work in Manchester over the past decade and a half; indeed, the theory was put forth by a psychology professor at Birmingham City University in 2015, but police have roundly rejected the idea. Said a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester Police to the Manchester Evening News:

“GMP is committed to thoroughly investigating each and every unexplained death in Manchester and approach each one as potentially suspicious in its initial stages.

Only after a robust investigation into the circumstances of each death would investigators deem one to be 'non-suspicious' and pass the file to the coroner.

The coroner's post mortem would then ascertain the cause ofdeath, which would then be recorded accordingly by the investigating officer.

None of our investigations are carried out in isolation and as we have said publicly before, we have established no link between the various incidents recorded.”

Still, though — if there really have been that many deaths connected to the canal in recent years, it’s not surprising that people would start to try to explain the pattern to themselves by whatever means necessary. Humans don’t do well with ambiguity.

I’ve been to Clinton Road. It’s not haunted — the “Druidic temple” that’s just off the road is actually just an old furnace, and there’s no evidence that anything has ever happened in the area that would inspire a “ghost boy” to take up residence underneath the bridge on the road — but it is kind of terrifying to drive down.

Also, as this Redditor put it:

Well played, Dad.

That would be the tunnel system underneath Portland, Ore. frequently (and, uh, kind of racist-ly) referred to as the Shanghai Tunnels. Much of the legend isn’t actually true, according to historians, but it’s proven to be incredibly persistent.

And let that be a lesson to us all.