Scary but True Urban Legends

While the plot of most urban legends can be somewhat unnerving, there is something especially freaky about scary but true urban legends.

There is something especially troubling about those urban legends that circulate through emails or around the campfire every summer. Sometimes you might hear about a couple who went parking in some secluded spot and, after hearing tapping on their windows, were both murdered with a butcher knife. Or another story might be about a person finding a human finger in a can of fruit from the store. In almost all cases, the urban legend is nothing more than a tall tale created to thrill and scare. However, just imagine how scary such an urban legend would be if it were true. Is there any such thing as true urban legends? There most certainly are.

The following are urban legends that are documented as true. References used to confirm whether or not these stories are true include Snopes.com and news sources.

One night, after cooking supper on the grill, a father went through his usual ritual of cleaning off the grill's metal cooking grate. The only difference on this particular day was that he had just purchased a brand new wire brush. The wire brush performed exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that the father figured there was no need to wipe off the grill with a cloth afterwards. About a week later, the family held a weekend barbeque, and the father cooked several hamburgers on the grill. After the event, two hamburgers remained.

The next day, the daughter was looking for something to have for lunch, so she took one of the burgers and reheated it in the microwave. She took a bite, and then told her mother that it felt like a piece of burger was stuck in her throat. Her mother tried having her drink some water. When that didn't help she realized that something was wrong, and took her daughter to the hospital. After checking her throat to make sure it was clear, the emergency staff took x-rays of her throat. The x-rays revealed a piece of wire stuck in her esophagus. The only way to remove the wire was through surgery. The girl was transferred to a Children's Hospital where the wire from the wire brush was surgically removed.

Truth: This took place in 2000, and the girl was treated at the Galveston Children's Hospital in Texas.

A fire started within the timber stacked on the upper deck of a large Swiss freighter. The crew managed to extinguish the fire, but they were forced to keep it under control by keeping the hot and smoldering wood as wet as possible. They kept this up for almost a month at sea, until the smoldering wood caught fire again, and the ship was forced to land in Wales. The oddest part of the story wasn't the fire, but the cargo. What the crew failed to realize throughout the 25 days they were pouring water on the smoldering timer was that the heat from the wood combined with the water seeping down into the lower cargo hold combined to create one of the world's first giant steam cookers.

The 1500 tons of tapioca in the cargo hold began to cook and expand. By the time the freighter docked in Wales, not only was the timber ablaze again, but the ship was under threat of buckling from the pressure of the expanded tapioca if it reached its boiling point. It took two days for fire crews to clear the fire and lumber and save the ship from the potentially explosive Tapioca.

Truth: This event took place in 1972 at Cardiff, Wales, when the Swiss freighter Cassarate was forced to dock due to the timber fire in the upper holds.

One day during a festival, a tug-of-war contest was held. There were thousands of contestants and the stakes were high. As the day wore on, the final tug-of-war contest took place, and included all 1,600 contestants from all teams, half on each side of the rope. The largest man in each group stood at the very front of each team, facing each other. The contest began, and both teams of about 800 people started pulling as hard as they could. Unfortunately, what those present didn't realize was that the large nylon rope was rated for less than half of the total force they were exerting on it. Suddenly, the center of the nylon rope snapped, and the thousands of kilos of force caused the rope to rebound and tear off the left arm of each of the two men at the front of each group. The men were raced to the hospital where their arms were carefully reattached.

Truth: This event was Retrocession Day in Taipei, held in 1997. The force of the rope snapping severely injured Yang Chiung-ming and Chen Ming-kuo. Their arms were reattached under surgery at Mackay Memorial Hospital.

Scary but true urban legends can be found in most major newspapers in every country of the world. The fact that such strange and scary things happen to people so often is probably a very good reason why most people believe urban legends, even when they aren't true. However, there's really no need for anyone to make up fake stories when truth is often so much stranger than fiction.

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