Gen X Urban Legends | TheaterFire

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No-Top-883@reddit

Everything was “ok so my aunt’s friend told her this….then the story like a woman had a bump on her forehead and one day she was brushing her hair and the comb hit it and it broke open and tons of baby spiders came out and now she’s in an insane asylum” and so on.LOL

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evilkitty1974@reddit

Richard Gere, the hamster & the toilet paper tube.

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Little_Storm_9938@reddit

Dear god - that’s an urban legend?

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exceptionallyprosaic@reddit

Gerbil jamming

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evilkitty1974@reddit

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Don't forget the Tom Hanks movie. And there was some story about a teenager who went missing. They thought he had been kidnapped by some D & D cult. Turns out, he from a bad home and was just trying to escape.

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Ashkendor@reddit

Lol, the Chick Tract about that was the best.

I actually worked for P&G in the early 90’s. I got copies of their public release reports where they contacted all the talk show hosts (and even a few TV pastors) back in the day to confirm that no, they have never had anyone from P&G on their show, period - much less anyone claiming to be a Satanic CEO. It also contained a few reports of successful lawsuits against groups that spread that bit of misinformation. I made a bunch of copies and mailed them to my sister back home in our little Southern town, who quite gleefully stuck them on every available bulletin board that had the Satanic memo. 😂

The Highgate Vampaire, North London. There was even a court case around it all.

In San Antonio - there’s a railroad crossing where you go at midnight, stop on the tracks, and put the car in neutral. A bus full of schoolchildren had been hit by a train at that intersection. Put baby powder on the trunk. The car will move off the tracks and you can see tiny handprints in the powder.

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rufireproof3d@reddit

Nope.

See anyone down there by the river?
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There was some guy who dropped too much LSD and was "perma-fried" into thinking he was a cup of orange juice.

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PeanutTimely6846@reddit

Word of mouth on the schoolyard.

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Old_Use7058@reddit

Smurfette. She got around

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PeanutTimely6846@reddit

I'm from down in the swamps of Louisiana and there are a lot of secluded roads with trees that hang over them.

So, we always had the stories where a couple of teens go out , one weekend and park out in the Woods, so that they can make out. The car breaks down, the boyfriend goes to get gas/help and the girl stays with the car.

Girl gets tired of waiting and falls asleep. She wakup to scratching noises on the roof of the car. She gets out to investigate and finds her boyfriend hanging, dead, in the tree and; depending on the story, either his fingertips or his toes are dragging on the roof of the car.

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West-Birthday4475@reddit

Swampy NC has a version of this story too

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Justdonedil@reddit

California Bay Area, we had a copse of eucalyptus nearby, same story.

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iridescent_lobster@reddit

Ah yes, thank you for remembering more details than I did!

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Ginger630@reddit

Bloody Mary

That people were putting drugs and razor blades in Halloween candy. I lived in NYC and they never happened. My parents checked my candy of course, but it was all good.

When I was a teenager, there were rumors of people going to clubs and being stuck with needles with AIDS.

Richard Gere and the gerbil

Marilyn Manson - the rib removal and if he was Paul from The Wonder Years

"There is a guy leaving nearby (but never named) that has invented a water engine, but THEY came in and told him they would kill him if he talks about it" This one doubles as an intelligence test as nothing makes sense. Not only the water energy motor makes no sense, there is never any source, but by telling the story of the guy to everyone you are condemning him to die. Nice job!

"There is a crazy guy that puts syringe needles filled with AIDS tainted blood inside theatre seats. So don't go to the local multiplex. " Heard that one everywhere from the mid 80s.

"There is that kid that saw Superman the Movie (in 1978) and wore a tablecloth as a cape and jumped to his death for a balcony. They should ban that dangerous film!"

The kid that died eating pop rocks.

The guy that woke up naked in an bathtub full of ice and a nasty scar in his body. He then saw a sign reading "seek attention, your kidneys were stolen". Very popular in the 80s

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Popadicklikatictac@reddit

My cousin still brings up the water engine story as a fact. He’s 42

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BigDougSp@reddit

I was a middle school science teacher and another staff member brought this one up and asked me about it, convinced it was real and being covered up by science..

Some kid, a few years older than me, was running from the cops with a pocket full of LSD. He hid in a water ditch and the LSD got wet and absorbed into his skin causing a severe overdose. which he never came out of. He had to be committed to a psychiatric facility because he believed he was a giant glass of orange juice, and cannot move because he doesn't want to spill. The doctors don't allow straws to be used in his presence because he is afraid of them.

I am pretty sure this was a local variation of a common urban legend.

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YonderPricyCallipers@reddit

Why the hell does this sound so familiar? Was it referenced in a movie or something?

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BigDougSp@reddit

An older classmate told me the story in 95 or 96, and my dumb teenage self believed it at the time. I have seen a few references to the LSD/OJ man in pop culture decades later which led me to think it was just a local variation of whatever urban legend was spreading back then. Snopes has a good summary.

Yes... except there are no lights around this cemetery, its in the middle of a couple farms out in the country...

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Bk_Punisher@reddit

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If you see a car with its lights off at night don't flash your high beams at them to try and let them know.

Mikey from the Life Cereal commercial was the butt of a joke. (After the Pop Rocks candy, he puked up his cereal. He lost his Life.)

I have to admire OPs optimism in thinking that the internet has led to less disinformation 😂

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Multi_task_xxx@reddit

Girl Guide summer camp! We never found any snipe, but in the morning were told the councilors stayed up late and did their own sniper hunt. They succeeded in catching a bunch because they found their nests. Then we were served them for breakfast. (They were just cut up breakfast sausages, but us 6-8 year old didn't know this.)

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Competitive-Fact-820@reddit

I never understood this one as a Snipe is a waterfowl.

To be entirely fair my dad was a massive bird watcher and in the 70s and 80s used to drag me along with him to various RSPB sites to bird watch, one of which had extensive marshlands and various species of Snipe,

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cassette1987@reddit

It's such a great time for all parties involved. The victim enjoys it mostly in retrospect.

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simonsaysgo13@reddit

A certain rock star drinking a gallon of c*m…

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Sasquatchmas@reddit

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Special-Original-215@reddit

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Odd_Policy_3009@reddit

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The outtakes from his scenes are hysterical

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onewomancaravan@reddit

Richard Gere.

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EverydayAdventures2x@reddit

Bwahahahahahahahahahhaha

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Suspicious-Yogurt480@reddit

The Smurfs were the only ones who had the right idea, was the punchline to that particular urban legend, prevalent among the Witnesses. In fact there were many of them, you’ll probably find more of those in the ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses subreddits, like these: the child who was burned through to the skin for wearing a ‘Satanic’ heavy metal shirt; the constant reports after natural disasters (earthquakes etc) that NO JWs were harmed BECAUSE they were all at the Kingdom Hall at the time; that’s Drake’s Devil Dogs are Satanic (this from a member of ‘the Annointed’ no less!); that backward masking in rock music was real and effective brainwashing; that someone was ‘tested’ offering reward or incentive to loosen their resolve about some peculiarly JW thing and held fast, only to find out it was ‘a test’ and gained an even greater reward afterward, etc. All consistent with the types of stories cult-like groups develop to build internal cohesion and make everyone feel part of something elite and special.

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SteveinTenn@reddit

This stuff wasn’t exclusive to J-dubs. I grew up Pentecostal and heard it all and then some.

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Friendly-Swimming-72@reddit

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Stranger danger - that there were roving gangs that kidnapped kids

LSD on the temporary "lick and stick" tattoos and that there was the house that was giving away drugs in Halloween candy (when it didn't have razor blades in it).

The green M&M's were poison.

Putting batteries in the fridge.

Dechibrator@reddit

Nice victory

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NahNah-P@reddit

Too many to to count. We have alot of Osage and Cherokee native people who have shared their stories of deer woman and the little people with a few people outside the clan and we have some haunted places that are very creepy at night. We have Gravity hill, where when you stop your vehicle it literally pulls you uphill. We have Cry baby grave, where at night you hear a baby crying We also have what is called the center of the universe near where i live, its an anomaly on it's own. So idk about all of them being urban legends but I hope they qualify.

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Kid_Ymkus@reddit

Most of what you just posted sounds very familiar to me. Gravity Hill, little people stories.… I am in Southern Oklahoma, but went to high school in northern Oklahoma. Or, maybe everybody has their own gravity Hill type situation in their area. IDK.

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Competitive-Fact-820@reddit

Worldwide Gravity Hills:

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I attended a Pentecost church for a few years during middle and high school, and the devil figured prominently into their theology.

They sometimes performed exorcisms, which we were not allowed to attend due to our youth, but claimed that one woman "climbed up the wall".

They also chatted about the dangers of occult communication and games, such as ouija, bloody Mary, etc. they claimed one of them summoned Jack the ripper via a ouija board.

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Admirable-Bar-3549@reddit

Ooooh, I’d be really interested in what he had to say and if he revealed his identity! Was he actually a royal?!

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False-Storm-5794@reddit

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I went to a pentacostal church with a school friend in 8th grade. Mid sermon, some woman came running out of the nursery, screaming about a toddler with a bloody nose. The entire congregation started praying bc apparently they thought the kid had a devil in them. I remember thinking "it's a toddler, they probably picked their nose". Never went back.

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chris750@reddit

Oh I just recalled one: The kid who had to go poop in the woods and wiped with poison ivy. It was a Boy Scout in the story I heard.

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themadprofessor1976@reddit

We had a similar event with poison ivy when I was in the Air Force.

Couple of trainees at the Presidio of Monterey went to sick call complaining of a poison ivy rash.

Given that they were male and female, they were dating, and the rash was located in their genital regions, it didn't take a genius to figure out how they got it.

We started calling them Itchy and Scratchy after that.

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SillyPuttyGizmo@reddit

at least they didn't use this killer- Gympie Gympue

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powderpoff6@reddit

Girl got her long hair caught in a loop de loop roller coaster and her whole scalp ripped off. I swear!

Samurai-Pooh-Bear@reddit

I would love to hear you do this!

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corq@reddit

Gunter glieben glauchen globen...

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blackbird24601@reddit

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Apawling_Behavior@reddit

This we knew.

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4thdegreeknight@reddit (OP)

no that is true

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Quirky_Might_8780@reddit

A gallon?! Somebody summon r/theydidthemath and tell me how may loads that is.

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Secret_Computer4891@reddit

I heard that was.... Damn. Someone else. I can't even remember now....

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Admirable-Bar-3549@reddit

Omg, my best friend in Jr. high introduced me to this one and we were sure we were going to get RICH. I think even her aunt was doing it? It was something where you mailed $1, and if you got 10 other people to do it, you were supposed to get $10,000 (or something similarly ridiculous). I think her aunt got $3, and my friend and I both got nothing.

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False-Storm-5794@reddit

Shit's real!

Cold-Ad-1978@reddit

Mikey died from Pop rocks

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potterinatardis@reddit

Mount Misery - Long Island So many legends

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martafoz@reddit

Sweet Hollow Road

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corq@reddit

We had an old property in Marathon, Florida that our generation called the "concrete" pond; by the late 80's the long-demolished house had been on gated property with guardhouses etc... all burned out by the time our generation discovered/explored. Folklore had it (utter hearsay) the wife committed self-deletion in the pond after discovering her husband's alleged affair.

But the "pond" that had been dug was extremely deep, and while it certainly had large garbage at the bottom, refrigerators, etc. After those "lost" months after graduation, but before college or jobs starting, we ran all over town playing D&D, getting up to random shit, but we all decided that we needed to skinny dip at the cement pond as a "just because we could," goal.

Short form: when Phil Collins was a kid, him and some friends were swimming. One of the kids got in trouble in the water and was drowning. Phil saw a guy on the shore and called out to him to help and the guy did nothing and just watched the kid die.

Years later, Phil Collins wrote In the Air about the incident "I was there and I saw what you did", tracked the guy down and gave him front row seats to his show and stared at him while singing the song. Allegedly the guy recognized Phil and knew what he was talking about and fled the show.

powrez@reddit

To piggyback on the LSD thing (otherwise unrelated) the rumor was that a kid in high school took seven hits of LSD, which was the ‘legal limit where you are declared insane’. Afterwards he was convinced he was a glass of orange juice. He now lived in a psychiatric ward and was terrified to sleep or be knocked over, convinced he would spill and die.

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Sleepy_cheetah@reddit

I remember this!

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Rays_LiquorSauce@reddit

Oh shit I heard that one. We had a local kid that spilled a “vial” on himself and went bananas and was put in the hospital permanently. But the truth was he did trip out but cashed a bunch of bonds his granddad left him and bought an rv, just took off.

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JohnSnowsPump@reddit

Richard Gere and the gerbil.

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watchyerheadgoose@reddit

There was a local news anchor who moved away. Rumor was he got caught with the gerbil.

4thdegreeknight@reddit (OP)

There was another one when I was a kid, in the South West part of the USA. There was a killer who preyed on people who broke down on a lonely stretch of road. He would actually cause flat tires by putting spikes on the road.

He would wait until they started walking back to town and kill them. One story was a family on a vacation got a flat, the dad went to get help and left his wife and kids behind in the station wagon. Hours later a creepy guy appeared and the mom locked the doors and rolled up the windows, he was trying to get the mom to open the door, he left and came back before dark and left something on the hood of the car in a big bag.

Eventually they flagged down another car and went to town, the dad never showed up and when the tow truck came back the dad's head was inside the bag.

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Sleepy_cheetah@reddit

This would have legit traumatized me. So glad I never heard this one.

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PhilosopherFun7288@reddit

That's not a gen x thing, that's an "I belong to a cult" thing.....

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GaryNOVA@reddit

In northern Virginia (NOVA) we have the Bunny Man.

I don't know about Jack in the box but hear me out...

LOrangeDTroit@reddit

The Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” story.

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idiotsbydesign@reddit

Most towns had at least 1 house that was purported to be haunted. Ours was an old abandoned house near our town square.

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xt0rt@reddit

Our Jr high art teacher lived in the haunted house in our town. She told several creepy stories that made me never want to visit. Or even drive by it.

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NotEasilyConfused@reddit

There was a house about 4 blocks from the school where the mortuary was. The mortician lived upstairs with his family.

Alfonso Ribiero breaking his neck while trying to spin on his head

Mikey from Life cereal dying from Pop Rocks and soda.

Razor blades in apples handed out during truck or treating.

Flushing an alligator down the sewer will result in a giant monstrous version.

Pointing at a something/someone in a cemetery will result in finger getting slammed in a door the next day, and it will eventually fall off.

Somebody went to buy a motorcycle that had been kept in an old barn. They started it up, bought it for a few hundred bucks, and got it home and noticed an inscription that said "To Elvis from Priscilla". I've heard the buyer was both Jay Leno and a guy I used to be in a band with.

There was a woman in the late 1800's who did this in Indiana - it was long thought to be an urban legend, too, until they went digging . . . https://www.pbs.org/video/death-on-the-farm-how-belle-gunness-amassed-a-fortune-by-luring-men-to-her-farm-and-chopping-them-to-pieces-l6avan/

This was the 80s I'm pretty sure. This one spread globally from what a know in an era of expensive IDD calls and no email.

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HURTBOTPEGASUS9@reddit

Basically every homophobic thing Mr. Garison said I heard first for the annoying christian kids on the playground.

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Kuildeous@reddit

I feel like that's less of an urban legend and more of religious trauma. Urban legends were often widely believed, and I fear that evil Smurfs weren't that commonplace (though communist Smurfs sometimes popped up).

One common belief I've seen was that a gang initiation involved driving with lights off and then chase after the first person who flashed their lights at you to murder them.

And of course the ole, "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights" message.

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