The Creepiest Urban Legends Of All Time

Call it folklore or a legend, but certain scary stories have been told for generations. These are told around campfires, at sleepovers, by parents trying to keep their kids in line, or by locals about the spooky house down the street. They're whispered around campfires and passed down from generation to generation.

Ranging from a disfigured man lurking in a tunnel and a creepy clown stalking children to a ghost ship on the river and haunted hotels, these stories have most certainly sparked fear even in the most courageous person. Or, at the very least, made you look twice before walking into a room or under a bridge.

Some of these cautionary tales are pure fiction (at least we think), while others are rooted in the truth, making them that much creepier. A local tragedy or weird next-door neighbor becomes a haunting or warning. Regardless, each time they're told, the terror continues, and the legend lives on.

While almost every country, city, and town has its own legend to be told, some have gained a bit more notoriety than others. Some have even landed in recent news making headlines for their creepiness factor; others inspired movies and TV shows. This list of 25 urban legends from across the country will undoubtedly have you sleeping with the light on tonight.

The story is simple but terrifying. Word around Arkansas was that a part-werewolf, part-man was wandering the streets of the town of Quitman. The truth is actually scarier. In the 1950s there was a boy named Gerald Bettis who was thought to torture stray animals. When he got older, he turned his cruel behavior to his parents, and his father was found dead in 1981. The mother was then kept as a prisoner in the home until she was saved and later testified against him in court. The legend goes that his ghost still wanders around on all fours and looks like a hairy dog.

This story is creepy on many levels. While there's no particular origin or truthful tale behind it, the story still gets told around the campfire. Basically, a girl received a dog as a gift, and it would sleep with her each night. She would often put her hand down and feel the dog lick. Then, one night while her parents were away she heard a dripping noise and went into the bathroom to turn off the tap. When she returned to bed, she felt her dog lick her hand. This happened several times until the girl investigated more and found her dog hanging dead in the cupboard with a note reading "Humans can lick too."

A journalist named Brian Bethel first told this story in the 1990s claiming it was true, but it has since become an unsubstantiated legend. He said that when he got in his car after a late night of shopping, two children appeared at his window asking for a ride home. He almost agreed until he noticed that their eyes were completely black and had no pupils or irises. He quickly drove off, and since then other people have claimed to have encountered the black-eyed kids.

Bottom line: Clowns are creepy. And this legend doesn't help. The story goes that a babysitter of a wealthy family was told to watch TV in a specific room after the children went to sleep. While there, she got creeped out by a clown statue and called the parents to ask if she could move rooms. They instructed her to grab the kids, leave the house, and call the police. Why? Well, the kids had been complaining of a clown watching them in the middle of the night, and the parents thought it was just nightmares. It turns out it was a little person dressed as a clown stalking them. Good news? There's no proof this story is true.  

A woman was driving on an empty highway late one night only to have the car behind her flash his brights for miles. She got scared, so she drove as fast as she could, with the other car following her dangerously close and flashing his lights the whole way. She made it to her driveway, and the man from the car followed her, saying to lock the door and call the police. It turned out he was trying to save her because he saw a man in the backseat getting ready to stab her. Even though the tale is not true, it might make you check twice before getting in your car.

Babysitters seem to have no luck. In this legend, a girl is watching TV after putting the children to sleep and waiting for the parents to get home. The phone rings, and she answers, but there's no one on the other end.  It rings again a few minutes later, and a man asks, "Have you checked the children?" and hangs up. The babysitter ignores the call, thinking it's the father. Then the phone rings again, and the man asks the same question. So, the babysitter calls the police, who trace the call and say it's coming from inside the house. The girl runs upstairs to get the kids only to find a man covered in blood and all three children dead. Babysitters, beware.

Riverdale Road in Colorado is 11 miles of sheer terror. For years, people have told tales of cars getting attacked by the ghost of a jogger and a phantom car driving up and down the road. The most popular story was that of the Gates of Hell. These gates blocked the entrance to an abandoned mansion where a man once burned his wife and children alive. The physical property and gates are now gone, but some believe this spot is still the portal to hell. Perhaps find a different route if your GPS is suggesting Riverdale Road.

To see if this legend is true, you have to follow some pretty specific instructions. Idaho's Canyon Hill is home to a Midnight Jogger (an apparition, of course). To see her, you have to park between two specific trees in the Canyon Hill cemetery at night. If you do so, a legless spirit will knock on your window and then continue running. Luckily, she seems to be a friendly ghost who just wants to make her presence known and get on with her workout.

Who knew there were so many gateways to hell? This one is apparently in Kansas. According to legend, the devil himself uses a roofless church as a portal to get to hell and comes out on Halloween and the vernal equinox. The reason they say he chose this spot is that it was the site of witch hangings, while the other theory is that the graves are that of Lucifer's children. The truth? There was a hanging tree here, but it was torn down in 1998. It hasn't stopped people from coming to find the devil, though.

The Montauk Project is a legend so famous, it served as the inspiration for "Stranger Things." Back in the 1980s, a series of government experiments were supposedly conducted in the famous surf town of Montauk, Long Island. Some claim that children weren't experimented on here and there were portals to other dimensions. It seems part of it might be true after a parapsychologist and electrical engineer named Peter B. Nichols wrote a book about his "repressed memories" from his time working in Montauk. He described genetic experiments, children spies, and time warps.

The Maltby Cemetery in Washington was rumored to be the resting places of a weird wealthy family. To access the tomb, you had to climb down 13 steps. That descent later became deemed the entryway to hell for damned souls. The steps have since been removed, but people still head to the spot and claim to have experienced paranormal activity, like being greeted by ghosts. It looks like there's more than one way to get to hell in this country.

The curse began with William Hayden, who was a wealthy Vermont man. According to legend, he blew all of his mother's money and then poisoned her to death when she started to complain. On her deathbed, she allegedly said, "The Hayden name shall die in the third generation, and the last to bear the name shall die in poverty." For the next century, the family was struck with financial troubles and mysterious illnesses. Their mansion was also said to be home to a lot of paranormal activity and the dead mother-in-law. The house then turned out to be the epicenter of other heinous activity. A Canadian family later used it to smuggle Chinese immigrants for slave labor.