The Charred Scuba Diver

To help put out a forest-fire helicopters sometimes scoop large containers of water out of lakes and oceans to dump on the blazes. During one such occasion a man enjoying a bit of scuba-diving was accidently scooped up and dropped into the burning trees. -Thanks to MiscMan

The Body in the Bed

A man and his wife were vacationing in Las Vegas and as they arrived in their room they found it was filled with an overpowering stench. They called the front desk to complain, and headed for the casinos for some late-night gambling while the problem was taken care of. When they returned to the room, the stench was replaced with the strong smell of chemical cleaners and deodorizers, annoyed but satisfied that it was better than before they went to bed. Early in the morning the smell had returned so strongly that it awakened them, the man called the manager and angrily demanded another room immediately. While his wife packed up their stuff the man ripped the sheets off the bed, where the smell seemed to be coming from. He found that the mattress had been cut open and a well-dressed corpse had been shoved inside. The couple were given a complimentary suite and free passes to the shows.

- see the film FOUR ROOMS

Bride and Seek

During a wedding reception of a young couple the guests decided on a drunken game of hide and seek. It was decided that the groom was "it" and he eventually found everyone but his new bride. Eventually the man became furious and decided it wasn't funny anymore and left her there. As weeks went by he accepted that she'd had second thoughts and went on with her life so he did the same. A few years later a cleaning lady dusted off an old trunk in the attic of the building where the reception had taken place, out of curiosity she opened it. Inside the trunk was the rotted body of the missing bride who'd apparently became locked in the trunk she'd hid in. Whether she'd suffocated or starved was unknown, but her face was frozen in a scream.

The Decapitated Motorcyclist

A Man on a motorcycle was passing an eighteen-wheeler carrying sheet metal when one of the sheets shifted and neatly cut off the driver's head. His headless body continued on it's path by the semi. The driver saw the headless cyclist and immediately had a heart-attack, and his truck swerved into a bus-stop full of people.

The Keg

A couple had just moved into a small castle they'd recently purchased and were excitedly searching all the nooks and crannies. In a large underground room they found many empty barrels that had been tapped years ago, and one that appeared to be full. They immediately tapped it to find that it contained a delicious brandy. They drank and served it at parties enjoying not only it's flavor, but that it could have been hundreds of years old. Months later when the barrel ran dry, they noticed it was still too heavy to be empty, they cut it open and found a shriveled corpse curled up in the barrel.

- This one's especially interesting because sometimes bodies were shipped this way to preserve them for burial.

AIDS Mary

A man met a beautiful woman in a singles bar one night and took her home. During the evening she told him that she had been raped a few years ago, but was overcoming her resentment and fear, and was finally able to enjoy sex again. The next morning he awoke to find her already gone, on the bathroom mirror she'd written a message in lipstick. "Welcome to the AIDS club."

The exact wording of the message varies, and often the legend ends with the guy searching for "Mary" hoping to kill her before he himself dies.

The Arm

An unpopular young med. student had been particularly annoying one day and some of her classmates decided to play a trick on her. They snuck into her room after she'd gone to bed and placed an amputated arm into bed with her. The next morning they anxiously awaited her reaction but got none. Eventually they went up to check on her and found her sitting on the bed, moaning and gurgling as she gnawed on the arm.

Bloody Mary

If you stand in front of a mirror in a dark room and chant "Bloody Mary" twelve times starting at the stroke of midnight, the face of a hideous woman will appear in the mirror. It's the spirit of a girl who was born with a disfiguring disease and was killed by a cruel joke gone awry.

This one's a classic. It's told about a thousand different ways, sometimes she scratches, slaps, grabs, kills... The number of chants changes, and what is chanted changes. Some good ones are Black Agnes and Hell Mary. Sometimes she's a witch who was burned at the stake, or an innocent woman accused and burned. The stroke of midnight isn't very common, most the time it merely has to take place at night. I liked it because it makes it more difficult for even the bravest souls not to pause under pressure. - see the films: CANDYMAN's and URBAN LEGEND

The Chatroom

A young boy met a new friend in a chat room and began talking to him regularly, the friend was from out of state but would be in town in a couple weeks and they made plans to sneak out and meet. The boy began to feel odd about the arrangement and confessed the whole thing to his father. The father contacted the authorities and after a couple hours the chat was traced to a local prison, the prisoner who'd been using that computer was scheduled for release in two weeks. - Thanks to Vincent X for that one

The Concerned Mother

A man and wife were driving late one night when they were flagged down by a woman that appeared to be hurt. She claimed she'd been in an accident and her baby was alive but trapped in the car. The man told her to wait with his wife and he'd see what he could do. He got to the car and found a couple obviously dead in the front seat but a baby crying in a carseat. He cut the baby loose and returned to his own car. When he got there his wife was alone, he asked her where the woman had went and she replied that she'd followed him to the wreck. He left the baby with his wife and went back to the car to find her. When he got there he realized the woman who'd been instantly killed in the front seat had been the one who'd flagged him down.

Drinking & Driving

A man got home late from a night out drinking with the boys and staggered inside, his wife heard him and helped him into bed. The next morning she complained about his behavior and how she worried about how he makes it home so drunk. He agreed that he had no memory of the last few hours of his night out, but said he'd never had a problem before. As he pulled out of the garage to go to work, his wife was who had been watching him angrily from the front door screamed when she saw the little girl crushed into the grill of the car.

The Graveyard Wager

A group of young girls were having a slumber party one night and began to exchange ghost stories. One girl claimed that the old man who had been buried earlier that week in the graveyard down the street had been buried alive. She claimed that if you tried you could hear him scratching at the lid of his coffin still. The other girls called her bluff and told her she was afraid to go there tonight. She eventually accepted their challenge and took a stake with her to drive in the ground to prove she'd been there. She headed off to the gravesite right away and never returned, the others assumed she had "chickened out" and went home ashamed. The next morning as they passed the graveyard they saw her there at the old man's grave. She had accidentally staked her nightshirt to the ground and died of fright.

The Hairy Hitchhiker

A young lady driving alone down the highway one night say a large gray-haired woman slowly walking along the side of the road. She pulled over and offered the old woman a ride. As they rode along, the women made small-talk. As the old lady offered her a stick of gum, she noticed the old woman's hands were very wide and the knuckles were badly scarred, she also saw how incredibly hairy the woman's arm was. Realizing her mistake, she swerved and said she thought she'd hit something, then she stopped and asked the old lady if she'd take a look. When the old lady was behind the car, the girl sped off. The young girl immediately felt guilty realizing that she had probably just been an old woman, and in her nervousness she had behaved very badly. She felt even worse when she notice the old woman's purse sitting in the floor of the passenger side. Realizing she couldn't just go on with it, she lifted it from the floor and saw that inside it was filled with wallets, watches and jewelry and a large bloody hunting knife.

The Hitchhiking Prophet

During World War II a couple were driving home one night and picked up a hitchhiker. The man barely spoke during the ride, but as he got out he thanked the couple and told them to repay their kindness, he'd answer any question they may ask. The driver smiled and said "Allright, when will the war end?" the hitchhiker replied "The war will end in July as surely as you will have a dead man in your car before you get home." Unsettled, the couple said good-bye and drove off. Before they reached home they saw a wrecked ambulance by the road, they picked up the driver and a badly hurt patient. By the time they reached the hospital, the patient had already died. As the shock wore off, the couple regretted that they hadn't asked the hitchhiker what year.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Two guys were driving down the highway one night, when they see a lovely young girl standing by the road shivering. They stop and offer her a ride, and lent her an overcoat. When they dropped her off at her house, they forgot the overcoat as she got out. The next morning they dropped by to get it and see that the girl was ok, her mother told them her only daughter died in a car accident long ago, and showed them her grave as proof. Neatly folded on the grave was the over coat.

This one is told many different ways, in some the girl disappears before they get to her destination, so the guys stop at the house to see what's going on. In some the guys take the girl to the prom before she leaves with the overcoat. Sometimes she died exactly a year ago to the date, others she died many years ago, but something like this happens every anniversary of her death. Usually she died in the place where the boys picked her up.

The Last Call

One of the Ball Brothers, of the canning jar family, had a great fear of being buried alive. He had a telephone installed in his tomb so he could call out if this happened to him. A few days after he died some of his wife's family got worried because they could only get a busy signal on her phone. Upon entering her home, they found her dead, a look of fright frozen on her face, clutching the phone. When they went to entomb her after the funeral a couple of days later, the phone inside the crypt was off the hook

The Message Under the Stamp

During the war a soldier faithfully wrote his mother every week so she would know he was all right, until one week she didn't get a letter and immediately began to worry. Within a couple of weeks she got a letter from the Army saying that her son had been captured and was being held in a Prisoner-of-War camp, and they assured her that they had no reason to believe the American prisoners were being mistreated in any way. A few weeks later the woman finally received another letter from her son, it read: "Dear Mom, Try not to worry about me, they are treating us well and I'll be released as soon as the war is over. Make sure that little Teddy gets the stamp for his collection. Love you, Joe" The woman was overjoyed to hear the news, but was confused because she had no idea who "little Teddy" was. She decided to steam the stamp from the envelope and have a look. When she did she saw that written on the back of the stamp were the words: "They've cut off my legs".

This may be one of the oldest Urban Legends in existence, it's been circulated during every war since the Civil War. It's ironic since POW camps didn't stamp their mail, being a government institution the mail was metered. It was especially popular during Vietnam, and the part of the body cut off varies.

The Mutilated Bride

A young man and his new bride were honeymooning in Paris when his wife went into a restroom and didn't return. With time the man began to fear the worst and went to the police. The police thought it was most likely the girl simply had second thoughts about the marriage, but they checked it out anyway and found no evidence of foul play. As weeks turned into months the man finally gave up on finding his beautiful wife but his life fell into a shambles he was so filled with grief. Unable to hold a job or go on with his life, he took to wandering the world looking for anything that might ease his pain. Years later in Borneo he came upon a freakshow in an old shabby building, he went in on a whim. In the last filthy cage he saw a twisted, scarred and mutilated woman rocking back and forth and groaning strange animal-like noises. He screamed as he recognized the birthmark on his wife's face.

Thump, Thump, Drag...

A teenage baby-sitter put the kids she was watching to sleep in their beds and went back downstairs. The late night news was on the TV -- the reporter said a psychopath from a local mental institution was on the loose and that police thought he might be in the area. He cautioned residents to lock their doors and windows because this guy was very, very dangerous. Well, the teenager checked the locks on the windows and the doors, but she forgot the door on the cellar bulkhead. Needless to say, the psychopath broke in about an hour later, coming up from the cellar, armed with an ax. The children heard some noises downstairs, but thought it was the baby-sitter moving some furniture around. Then it got real quiet. All they heard for the remainder of the night was this noise: "Thump! Thump! Dra-aag... Thump! Thump! Dra-aag..." Evidently, they were too afraid to get up to see what it was. In the morning, their parents came home and were horrified to find the babysitter at the top of the stairs, dead with both arms hacked off at the elbows. She'd been climbing the stairs on the bloody stumps of her arms, pulling her badly injured body along. Was she trying to check on the children? Was she trying to get help? Or in the madness of her tortured soul, was she planning to kill the children herself? No one knows for sure.

The Cheating Bride

After a man and woman were pronounced married the groom turned to the audience and explained that under each guest's chair was an envelope with a picture of the bride having sex with the best man. He'd found out about it earlier but decided to go through with the wedding so her parents could pay for the ceremony and all their friends and family could know the truth. He got an annulment the following Monday. -

Sell the Car

A man runs off with a little cutie and sends his wife a Dear Jane letter telling him he's not coming back and he wants a divorce. He tells his wife to sell his Porsche and send him half the proceeds. She runs an ad "Porsche for Sale, $20" and sends him his check for $10.

The Sweet Smell of Revenge

A man had been sleeping around behind his wifes back, unknown to him she had become suspicious. When she finally found evidence she packed up and left him - taking only her most personal belongings. The man soon perked up and enjoyed his new found freedom. Soon after he noticed a bad smell through the main part of the house. Blaming the smell on bad house cleaning he set too it and scrubbed the place from top to bottom but still the smell remained. Enlisting the help of his girlfriend they checked and found, sewn into the hem of the floor length curtains, prawns - rotten and mushy. Needless to say the curtains were tossed and the ex had her moment of revenge.

What Time is it?

A guy calls his live in girlfriend and tells her he's met someone else and wants her to move out. He'll be gone all weekend and says for her to be gone by the time he gets back. He expects to find his place trashed when he arrives, but finds everything is just fine except the telephone is off the hook. He hangs it up and thinks nothing of it until he gets the phone bill. Before she left, the girlfriend called the number to "Time" in Tokyo and left the phone off the hook for two days.