Urban legends is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not.
A hoax is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible.
Legend tripping is a practice in which a usually furtive nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or haunting. The practice mostly involves the visiting of sites endemic to locations identified in local urban legends, and can serve as a rite of passage. Legend tripping has been documented most thoroughly to date in the United States.
Roland Rat is a British television puppet character. He was created, operated and voiced by David Claridge, who had previously designed and operated Mooncat, a puppet in the Children's ITV television programme Get Up and Go!
Jan Harold Brunvand is an American retired folklorist, researcher, writer, public speaker, and professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah.
Urban Legend is a 1998 slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks, written by Silvio Horta, and starring Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Tara Reid, and Michael Rosenbaum, and is the first installment in the Urban Legend film series. Its plot focuses on a series of murders on the campus of a private New England university, all of which appear to be modeled after popular urban legends. In addition to its younger cast, the film features supporting performances from Robert Englund, Loretta Devine, John Neville, and Brad Dourif.
The "Well to Hell", also known as the "Siberian hell sounds", is an urban legend regarding a putative borehole in the Siberian region of Russia, which was purportedly drilled so deep that it broke through into Hell. It was first attested in English as a 1989 broadcast by an American domestic TV broadcaster, the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
The Hook, or the Hookman, is an urban legend about a killer with a pirate-like hook for a hand attacking a couple in a parked car.
Animal roleplay is a form of roleplay where at least one participant plays the part of a non-human animal. As with most forms of roleplay, its uses include play and psychodrama.
Rodney A.M. Dale was an English author, editor, publisher, and a co-founder and former member of Cambridge Consultants Ltd. He wrote principally on non-fiction topics, as well as three novels, a number of poems, and pantomimes.
The killer in the backseat is an urban legend from the United States and United Kingdom. It was first noted by folklorist Carlos Drake in 1968 in texts collected by Indiana University students.
The Choking Doberman is an urban legend that originated in the United States. The story involves a protective pet found by its owner gagging on human fingers lodged in its throat. As the story unfolds, the dog's owner discovers an intruder whose hand is bleeding from the dog bite.
The Baby Train, or simply Baby Train, is an urban legend told in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. The legend first appeared in Christopher Morley's 1939 novel Kitty Foyle. According to the legend, a certain small town had an unusually high birth rate. This was allegedly caused by a freight train passing through the town and blowing its whistle, waking up all the residents. Since it was too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up, couples would have sex. This resulted in a mini-baby boom.
Many urban legends and misconceptions about drugs have been created and circulated among young people and the general public, with varying degrees of veracity. These are commonly repeated by organizations which oppose all classified drug use, often causing the true effects and dangers of drugs to be misunderstood and less scrutinized. The most common subjects of such false beliefs are LSD, cannabis, and PCP. These misconceptions include misinformation about adulterants or other black market issues, as well as alleged effects of the pure substances.
The babysitter and the man upstairs—also known as the babysitter or the sitter—is an urban legend that dates back to the 1960s about a teenage babysitter who receives telephone calls that turn out to be coming from inside the house. The basic story line has been adapted a number of times in movies.
Jumping to conclusions is a psychological term referring to a communication obstacle where one "judge[s] or decide[s] something without having all the facts; to reach unwarranted conclusions". In other words, "when I fail to distinguish between what I observed first hand from what I have only inferred or assumed". Because it involves making decisions without having enough information to be sure that one is right, this can give rise to poor or rash decisions that often cause more harm to something than good.
Mothman, in West Virginian folklore, is a humanoid creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area from November 15th, 1966, to December 15th, 1967. Despite its name, the original sightings of the creature described avian features. The first newspaper report was published in the Point Pleasant Register, dated November 16, 1966, titled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something". The national press soon picked up the reports and helped spread the story across the United States. The source of the legend is believed to have originated from sightings of out-of-migration sandhill cranes or herons.
Egg balancing is a traditional Chinese practice of standing eggs on their ends that has also been popularized in the United States. Although the irregular shape of eggs makes this somewhat difficult, eggshells typically have many imperfections such that the vast majority can be balanced on their broad ends with minimal effort.
The Baby-Roast, also known as The Hippy Babysitter and The Cooked Baby, is an urban legend in which a baby is roasted alive at home by a babysitter or sibling. It is "one of the classic urban legends". There have been a few isolated cases where babies have been roasted.
