Urban Legends

Before we can start on specific urban legends, also referred to as urban myths, let's explore exactly what they are. Dictionary.com says "a modern story of obscure origin and with little or no supporting evidence that spreads spontaneously in varying forms and often has elements of humor, moralizing, or horror: Are there alligators living in the New York City sewer system, or is that just an urban legend? "

There are a ton of urban legends out there and no one really knows where they came from. Often times you hear that it happened to "a friend's cousin's friend's dad!" or some other untraceable source. Some urban legend's can be traced back centuries and are world wide. Others can only be traced back a few months such as some of the scams and such on the internet. While others are very localized to a specific town or village.

It has been widely spread that there are alligators who make a home of the New York City sewer system. Now there are of course many different versions of this story to date. But from the research I have done, it seems that there may be some basis for truth. In 1935 Teddy May, the commissioner of sewers at the time, claims to have seen them with his own eyes after getting reports from workers. He supposedly formed a crew to exterminate the gators, mainly using rat poisioning, and then they were flushed to the sea. In 1937 he reported that they were all gone. How the gators got in the sewer is explained away by people keeping them as family pets and when they got too big, they flushed 'em. Hmm...I don't know about you, but the hole in my toilet isn't that big. Since this time period there have been a few reports of sightings, but it was generally only by one or two people. And only one of these gators has ever been pulled out of the sewers for all to see. An interesting side note: I have found many incomplete references to alligators in the sewers of Constantinople!

I'm sure most people have heard this one and even tried it when they were younger. I know I did! ;) . A fun way to scare the *$#% out of yourself! There are so many variants of this story I don't know where to begin!!!

The way I heard it was that if you go into a darkened room and spin around 3 times while repeatedly chanting "Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary!" one of two things would happen: either the glass in the mirror would break or you would look into the mirror and see a witch in the mirror who wanted to scratch out your eyes! I wonder how many of you have seen this(Come on, I know some of you have run out of the room SCREAMING.) There are MANY people who claim to have had this happen to them. That many people can't be wrong, right? The human imagination is a great thing ;) .

I attempted to track down WHO Bloody Mary is, but theories on this range from a sweet girl who was beat and committed suicide, to a powerful witch, with just about everything in between. The most compelling thing I have come up with is Queen Mary of England who reigned from 1553-1558. She was well known for burning hundreds of protestants at the stake. In 1558 she died of ovarian cancer. Karma, anyone?

This is another of the more popular urban myths. It goes as follows:

A teenage girl is left to watch a child or children. After she puts the child(ren) to bed, she starts recieving threatening phone calls (or in some versions, just breathing, or maniacal laughing). After recieving a few of these, she starts getting really scared. So she calls the operator or police and is told that the calls are coming from another line in the house UPSTAIRS! This is when she checks on the child(ren) and possibly find them dead and gets killed herself. Depending on the variation of course!

The roots to this one are hard to find (of course). But there have been many similar stories since the 1960's!

Urban legends, have been around for a long time (most likely when humans first learned to talk). It is safe to say they are definitely going to be around for many more centuries. Just remember just because a lot of people believe in something doesn't make it true!