Urban Legends - spooky season special episode

This spooky season chat urban legends with Emily and Ashley. We asked you, the listeners, what you remember being the scariest urban legends as a kid and are here to report back on them. We also take a bit of a sidebar in the closing 10 minutes to chat conspiracy theories - are they the urban legends of today?

TW: Murder, SA, Assault, Child endangerment

0:00-2:00 Intro
1:45-5:40 Bloody Mary
5:45-9:30 The call is coming from inside the house
9:30-13:40 Candyman
13:40-16:30 Flashing headlights
16:30-21:00 Slenderman
21:00-26:40 Hiding under the car/tendon slicing
26:45-28:45 What we watched as kids and read 
28:45-38:00 Conspiracy theories, the internet and final closing content

Links to articles/research mentioned on the episode:

Janett Christman article - https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/politics/government/2010/03/07/who-killed-janett-christman/984978007/

Legend of Bloody Mary-
https://discover.hubpages.com/education/The-story-behind-the-legend-of-Bloody-Mary

Bloody Mary movie -
https://deadline.com/2024/07/bloody-mary-origins-movie-jeffrey-reddick-todd-slater-in-works-1235999736/

Candyman-
https://theconversation.com/candyman-the-urban-legends-behind-the-movie-and-why-we-find-them-irresistible-167126

Ruthie Mccoy article-
https://the-line-up.com/ruthie-mae-mccoy

Slenderman CBS news-
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-slenderman-legend-everything-you-need-to-know/

HBO Beware The Slenderman-
https://www.hbo.com/movies/beware-the-slenderman

USA today Slenderman article-
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/12/slender-man-2014-stabbing-case-timeline/73299271007/

Transcript

Urban Legends

Hi, I'm Emily. I'm Ashley, and this is books with your besties. my. Did you know my husband has two? Has has two of those that zap them. They're like they electrocute them. And he he owns two of them. I've seen those. I'm just going to kill this one. Usually I can tolerate them, but this one is once it flew into my eyeball today. Earlier. I wonder if there's an urban legend about fly. Like. What does that mean? I don't know if it means you're going down. Nothing. Let's start over. Yeah. You sound better as the first person. Okay, okay. Hi besties. Welcome back. We are going to be talking about Urban Legends today because it's spooky season and we have been reading as our creepy book of the month this month for October. Red River Road by Anna Downs. It's an awesome book. Super fun. We get to talk to Anna Downs later this look for that interview later. And we to talk about urban legends, because in the book, we noticed that there was a little bit of conversation about urban legends kind of early on in the book, van life in Australia, and it reminded me of childhood, was perfect timing for thinking about this in Spooky October. And we wanted to talk with you about some. So we asked you on our Instagram, what are some of the urban legends that absolutely freaked you out when you were younger or still freak you out to this day? And we got lots of fun answers. So let's dive in. Ashley, tell us about one of the urban legends, the one that came up the most I bet people could guess was Bloody Mary. Did you play Bloody Mary or do you remember hearing about it? I don't think I ever played it because I was absolutely terrified about it, but I know it. Yes. So if for some reason you are someone who doesn't know Bloody Mary, here's here's the urban legend that if you insert in three times into a mirror, say Bloody Mary, I'm not even going to say it three times. In a dimly lit room, she comes behind you, kills you, and takes your soul. That's the urban legend. Question. How many people do you know who said Bloody Mary in the mirror and then died? I know zero people who were willing to try it because we were all scared. It's probably true because no one's ever actually done it. So I decided I needed to look up where Bloody Mary came from. Right. Because urban legends don't just start. They come from stories from somewhere. So the story I heard was that there was a woman named Mary, and I couldn't find this story anywhere, so I don't know how or where I heard it, but that there was a woman named and she was buried in a shallow grave in a coffin. And back in those days, they weren't sure if you were dead or not. So they put a bell and you would pull a string, and it would ring the bell if you woke up dead inside the coffin. Yikes. So the next morning, her family comes out and the bell is detached from the string, which meant she was trying to ring it and she tried to ring it so hard it became detached. Which is why when she supposedly attacks you, she scratches you. Because when they found her, there were fingerprints on the inside of the coffin from her scratching, trying to get out. That's a horrible story. Why would you share that? That's. That's awful. Ashley. Well, that is why I never did Bloody Mary. Because that's the story I was told growing up that I believe that that is what would happen to you if you said it three times in the mirror. I mean, who knows if that is something that happened way, way in the past and it's something that's not we don't have documented as connected or whatever. But also, don't you think that it's possible Bloody Mary was just a really good campfire story that someone made up it caught on and someone's like, I heard the craziest story, and it just became one of those word of mouth viral things. Yes. story I did find the origin story of Bloody Mary online, which was written by Alex Fire on Hub Pages, was a story about Mary Worth, who was considered a witch. She lived in the woods, and she would take the souls of young girls to basically keep herself young. Eventually she was caught and they burned her at the stake. And while they were burning her, that's when she put the hex on everyone and said, I will come back and haunt all of you. So that's the the origin story I found. That most spread. Whoa whoa whoa. Okay, so this is the that gets repeated over and over in all different circles year over year. It's actually really has anti-Semitic roots, but

the whole drinking the blood of babies or taking their souls to keep yourself young, That's what people now talk about, right? Yes. Absolutely. Yes. The Adrina Chrome, that whole crazy conspiracy theory. is the main story. And here's the cool Domingo on deadline, who does the Final Destination franchise, wrote that there's actually a movie being made about bloody about blank. No thank you. I know it sounds absolutely terrifying. That's fun. I'm sure that people will watch that and then they'll go try Bloody Mary in the won't try it. I'm not running that risk. There's no reason to. You never try it. You don't know. You try it. What if it's real? year old heard about Bloody Mary at school already when she was like a year ago. She still doesn't sleep in her own room. FYI, she sleeps in our room on the floor. I'm not kidding. Because of that stupid story, she was so terrified. And who can blame her? And she has a mirror in her room and I was like, I can take it out. She's like, nope, still not sleeping in here. I do not care. I will not be alone. I will not for a while there. She wouldn't walk places by herself in our house. She was so afraid. Honestly, can we blame her? I can't blame her. Bloody Mary is terrifying. Okay, let's move on to another one. So I did a lot of research on this one. So this is the urban legend that there is a baby sitter and they get a call and there's someone who's either on the other line, they're like breathing or laughing or like, making them uncomfortable. they get this call a few times and there they go, check on the kids and everything's quiet. They come back, and eventually it's that the they call the police, the babysitter calls the police, and then the police are like, we traced the call. The call is coming from inside the house. Right. So that's the urban legend that this this babysitter had. What's crazy is this one also, there is no known actual incident of this, but there is a true crime it's thought to have maybe spurred some of the information or some of the lore about it. And that is the Janet Chrisman case. And so, according to TJ Greaney with the Columbia Daily Christman was babysitting a three year old. She was 13 years old. She was babysitting a three year old. And this was It was 1950. So this was in March, March 18th of 1950. was an eighth grade party that night, but Janet Chrisman went to babysit instead. police got a Janet that night freaking out, absolutely hysterical and saying, come now, come now on the phone. But they didn't have the technology then to trace the call. They didn't get information on where she was when the family, the Remax, who she was babysitting for, came home at 1:35 a.m., they and back door of the house were unlocked. All the blinds were, up and the porch light was on and there was a broken window, and Janet Christman was dead inside and had been sexually assaulted and murdered. And she fought for her had been strangled with a cord from the iron in the home. remains unsolved. Oh my gosh. So a super sad and scary case. But you can see why then people were really haunted. And some of her classmates in this that I referenced in the Columbia Daily Tribune and TJ Greaney reached out to multiple of her classmates and friends at the time who are now in their 70s, and they said they still for many years, for it took a long time for them to be willing to be hung alone like this really haunted their little community. And this was a tiny little town. This was 30,000 people in their town. So this is not a huge it really rocked their whole community. Oh my gosh, that is such a sad story. I can't believe it's still unsolved. It's a terrible story. It's so sad. And you can see why babysitters would be afraid. But I took that to the next level too. Right then the call coming from inside the house, there's no evidence that that actually that part actually happened. But I think it was natural for babysitters to be In general, I was I was always nervous at night babysitting. I was always afraid, I don't know, it's a lot of responsibility for a teenager or pre-teen. And to be in a home by yourself and feel vulnerable. It's the first urban legend I'm realizing, I repeated to unfortunately, scare my sibling. Oh, Ashley, I know, but that was. That's what we were supposed to do with these, right? We didn't have the internet, so we had to entertain ourselves with urban legends. Yeah. We didn't. We didn't have the internet. We just like to tell scary stories. So you were like, Jojo, hey, Jojo, we're going babysitting. We literally did the call inside the house. Like, I don't remember how, but we called the house while she was babysitting and pretended we were in the house. Oh, that's my go. Oh, man,

that's bad. Saying it out loud, I shouldn't. We might have to cut that part out. No, it's kind of amazing. Oh, if the statute of limitations is up, it's the things that siblings will do to each other. My goodness, I know. Well, that reminded me of the one that scared me the most growing up. And it does have a piece of it. That's true. And that's Candyman. You never saw the movie, right? I never saw the movie. Okay. It was the first movie I saw that completely destroyed me, completely destroyed me. So if you don't know Candyman, you say it five times in the mirror. Just like Bloody Mary. Candyman. Candyman. And he appears behind you with a hook for his hand. And obviously what they all do, he kills you, right? So this urban legend was made into two different films in 1992, which is the one that terrified me because I was only 12 and should not have been watching things like 2021. In an article on The Conversation, they talk about both films. So the original film, it it's that he's the son of an enslaved black man who was horribly maimed and murdered by a white mob for having an interracial relationship. In the 2021 is murdered because he is a black man, and he is falsely suspected of putting a razor blade in candy and giving it to a white child. Wait, that's a whole other urban legend? Yes. So 2021 Jordan Peele, of course. And another director redo Candyman. So it's still man being falsely falsely accused for crimes that they didn't commit and murdered or imprisoned. But it was a remaking of it, but obviously two different urban where the true story comes in. When the movie was made in 1992, they did take a true crime piece of talk about how Candyman shows up behind you when you say his name five times. So on the lineup. Com it was reported in 2021 about Ruthie Mae McCoy. So on the evening of April 22nd, 1987, the Chicago Police Department received a phone call from McCoy. The frantic call confused the dispatcher. recordings showed that McCoy told them that people threw her cabinet door down and were coming through her bathroom. They obviously didn't believe her. After a while went by, a police car was sent even though there was confusion, and then there was a ton of negligence. And they didn't note that she was probably actually being attacked, but that it was just a disturbance so they didn't check on her. The next day, her neighbor called and said, you know, I always see Ruthie and she hasn't checked in on me. Like, would you mind coming back and checking they came back. She had been shot multiple times and was dead, and they did, in fact, come through her wall medicine cabinet to get into her unit. Oh my what was their point? Was it robbery? Yeah. They thought she had a large sum of cash. It was noted that that's why they were breaking in. But Candyman itself, obviously urban legend, he's not real. But they did take this case and make up that. That's how he comes into your room through the medicine cabinet. So do they really think that's the origin of Candyman? But it is the origin of Candyman. And this true crime got married, basically met in the middle. And that's how they came up with the idea of how Candyman comes behind you. Does that make sense? I guess it's also just very reminiscent. Similar to Bloody Mary, right? Oh, there was a. Yeah. Yes. So it's like a modern day Bloody Mary. It was like Bloody Mary wasn't scary enough. So let's make it. Also is scary and that also that you might get razorblades in your Halloween candy. Right. Which is something we all grew up. We all grew up being told that. Right? Which, by the way, that urban legend, I am fairly certain, is completely not true. Also, like there are zero reported cases of actually a razor blade in candy zero zero, but we sure thought that it was the thing that's so funny, I know. Absolutely. So Candy man, I still won't say it to this day, but I do want to see the 2021 movie. I haven't seen it yet, so maybe that's what I'll do this spooky season. I think I'd be willing to see it, sounds terrifying still. watch one of these scary movies that were referencing. I'll watch one, but I need to be, like in my pajamas with a whole bunch of girlfriends in, a cozy place. And we're all staying together. Yes. So girls trip sounds great to me. Girls trip to watch Candyman. Oh, boy. Okay, I don't know if I signed up for that. Okay, that sounds good. Okay. Let me let's move on. Let me give you another urban legend that came up lots of times that I definitely was freaked out about. And that is the car. If you flash your headlights at a car without their headlights on, it will trigger a gang initiation and they will turn

around and they will come and kill you. Did you hear that one? I did, absolutely, yep. And this was, I want to say, Emily, that I heard it in the prime of when we were getting our driver's license, like 1994, 95. And I thought, what? What am I supposed to do? apparently in my research on this one, thought that maybe this urban legend started in the 1980s in Montana, and the rumor originated from about Hells Angels that the Hells Angels biker club was initiating people by if they flashed their headlights, driving around with their headlights off, and if people flashed their headlights. But there were actually no cases that I found where this happened. That, again, is not to say that it didn't for sure, but it was certainly a rumor. It's considered to be totally false. Of course, this rumor moved on from Hells Angels to like all kinds of gang initiations, and everyone's terrified to flash their headlights. So here's my question. Actually, you were scared of this, and you had said that. Would you flash your headlights car with no lights on now? Now I do because I'm a 44 year old woman and I get grumpy and I'm like, hey, your lights aren't on, I need you to be safer. So yeah. Oh, and then what? You said I never heard an actual news story of this happening to anyone I knew. Yes, I totally would now, too. And also, I'm super appreciative when people flash their headlights around here, it's usually because there's deer in the road, oh, people will flash their headlights to signal that there's a police officer, yeah. I might second guess it, though, if I'm. I don't drive out on, like, country roads by myself. But say I'm out on a country road by myself and it's super dark. I'm. I might think twice about alerting attention and flashing my headlights. You know, that's a good point. If you are feeling vulnerable, then it could be. The gang initiation is finally here. It's the start of any good horror movie, obviously. Oh, that's a good one. Why don't they have that? The whole head lights flash and then they they turn around and then they kidnap them. That would be a good movie. Sidebar. But last night, Ben and I, for the 87,000th time, watch Straight Out of Compton, the movie. Oh, about gang initiations. And I just I just looked at him and I said, I don't, I don't think I would have done well in a gang. He's like, I don't think that you would have either. You know, you're not a great candidate. I don't think anyone's going to be recruiting you. I don't think so either. I don't think so either. I am also not a good candidate. I would be like you guys, we can't. That's illegal. And we're like, that's the whole point. you guys, are we going to have some alcohol? I can have one whole drink if you want. Together you all have Cabernet at this initiation. They probably do actually. They got all the finer things. speaking of illegal, there is one that started as an urban legend that unfortunately, completely spiraled into something true crime. Do you know about Slenderman? Yes. No. Okay. Do you know the timeline of Slenderman? Like this is a more recent urban legend, right? So you and I were in the thick of late 20s, right? Like a career, marriage, having kids. So that's why we didn't hear of it when it happened. Because this was 2009, okay? We weren't really interested in conspiracy theories, and I think we're barely using the internet at that point in time. Right? Oh, really? I think we had cell phones and stuff, but I don't know that we had as much access or it was as popular. My posts from the internet in 2009 say things like, let's have bagels, Emily. like, did we not text? Like, that's how we use social media and We're still like $0.10 a piece, so you just post it on your Facebook page. Literally one came up today that was like, see you in Multnomah for bagels. I'm like, that's embarrassing, but I'll leave it up. So Slenderman started in 2009 a completely innocent way. There was a web forum called Something Awful, and it had a contest that challenge users to just edit an everyday photograph to appear normal. a in a photograph. Slenderman was in the background, just a very skinny, faceless man who was abnormally tall and thin. And it never said that he straight up murdered people. He just would show up and terrorize people. So it wasn't like all these other urban legends where it's like, you have to take an action and call Slenderman. It's almost scarier. Like, you just see him and that means your your time is up, or you see him in the background of a photo and think there is Slenderman. But because it was after the internet, it completely took hold. There were video games made of Slenderman, Halloween costumes,

there was a movie that was made and unfortunately it went too far. But according to an article by Natalie Allen and Jim McCauley in USA Today in April 2024. In 2014, two girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Wire, both 12 years old at the time, brought their 11 year old classmate to the woods and stabbed her 19 times. My God, did she die? No. She crawled out of the woods and she was in the hospital for six months. No, six days in the hospital. And she lived. But the two girls allegedly stabbed her 19 times in what investigators described as a sacrifice intended to please split Slenderman. The talk about a brain not developed or two. Right. So in in this article and in a documentary called Beware the Slender Man on HBO, they talked about these girls and that obviously there there that could lead them to potentially hurt people at some point in time. But that Slenderman really gave them not a reason, but like a path to, to to make this choice. September 2017, where was found not guilty as a result of a mental disorder. Geyser pleads guilty, but she was not held criminally liable. So at age 15, Anissa was committed to 25 years at a mental institution, and geezer is committed to 40 years at a mental institution for treatment. Wow. I mean, they don't sound right to think that they would truly be pleasing an urban legend character and, well, 12 years old. I mean, it shouldn't matter how old you are when it comes to talking about murdering or attempting to murder another human. But 12 years old is a special kind of that. Those are children. Thank God that that girl lived. I feel horrible for the trauma she had to endure, both physically and emotionally and her family. But thank God she survived. Yeah. So there's a 2017 HBO documentary called Beware the Slenderman. If anybody wants to watch it and hear all about this urban legend unfortunately turned into a true crime case. Okay, I think we put that on our girls trip playlist. Okay, this is going to be great. It's going to be great. I mean, none of us are going to go home, okay? But it will be. It will be fun. Nothing. Some popcorn and hot cocoa can't fix Ashley. Nothing. Okay, I have one last one. And of course, it's also about driving because I am just terrified of the car, I was growing I was very scared of a man hiding underneath your car. And when you walk up to it, and oftentimes this urban legend was in like a parking garage or when you're by yourself, obviously. But I'm just worried about it in my driveway. Okay. Um, you walk up to your car and there's someone hiding under the car, and they slash your Achilles tendons. They slash your that you cannot run away, and then they either kill you or they take your car. I think in of the urban legend variations of this, it's so that they can rob you and take the car, but there's more dark and terrifying ones. Also, in one variation, once they slash your Achilles tendon, you bend over and then they to like, grab your ankles and then they slash your wrists. And so then you're fully incapacitated. And this really scared me. I didn't check under the car kind of a lot before I would drive anywhere, because it makes sense. Here's a couple of questions I have as an adult. Okay, a couple of holes that I'm finding. you get under a car won in the first place? That's going to be hard. A lot of cars, right? So I mean, yes, if you have a truck but a lot of cars, the profile is low. So this is a very, very slender under the car. You're laying flat on your belly right I guess. Could you lay on your back. Can you get under. Yeah. Maybe you're on your back. So if you're on your back, you can at least use your right hand. If you're that's your for most people, 95% of people right hands your dominant hand. So I guess you have to lay on your your belly. you're on your belly, then you gotta be a lefty or use your left hand. So you have to have a strong non-dominant hand. I'm looking at my car to picture them. So you wave here, you wave your arm around and slash at their ankles. And naturally, you can cut their Achilles tendons because they're facing backwards. But I have good questions about that as well. So when I go to the car to get in, I stand near the car, but not so close. I'm not like my ankles aren't like up touching against the car with my feet poking under. Okay. Like I'm not like trying to hug the door to open it. Right. You got to stand back because the door has to open. So you're like two feet away from the car with your ankles facing backwards from the person. So this lefty who's on their belly has to slash out your Achilles tendons two feet away with enough force. It doesn't it doesn't work, Ashley. It doesn't work.

And then there and then too, they can injure you sufficiently with that one cutting or slashing that. Then they, while they're slow wriggling themselves out from under the car, you can't like, I don't know, get in the car and run them over or, you know, alert. Attention. Run away. Kick them in the face. This one. So such nonsense. Okay, something I read online, which probably was some somewhere that, you know, not well researched. Listen, urban legend websites, this isn't like journalism, right? On urban legends, this is like random people just tell what they're. What's the story about the urban legend? In one iteration of this, people said the story can be that sometimes while you're driving, you could hear noises. And then then when you pull over, there's someone under your car and they slash your ankles. What were they hanging on, clinging on like a spider to the bottom of the car. And then their arm strength isn't at all fatigued from that. And also, like you didn't hit your head ever on anything or fall off while driving, you're like going 40mph clinging on to the bottom of the car. This is just listen, here's my point. This is the dumbest urban legend I've ever heard. This one, I think the one where the the person's in the back of your car, that one's scary. And apparently there are cases where that has happened. And I know there's one specific case where someone was in the back of the car and the driver shot and killed the person that was in their car, but but that one makes more sense because someone could be in your car. The Achilles one makes no sense. But you and I talked about this. This was such an urban legend in where I am in Oregon, that it was hyper focused, even on a local mall that was like, you don't go to this mall because this is the mall where you get your Achilles tendon slashed. Yeah. What's interesting about that actually is during my research, I found that other people said things like, you didn't go to this mall in Tacoma, so it was localized to whatever area you were, and they made you believe it was at your mall. And if it really boiled down to someone wanting to, I don't know, rob your car, wouldn't it be easier for them to just point a gun at you and rob your car, then get under your car and try to slash your tendon? Yeah, or like pop out from behind a car. You know, this is a this is going to be a girls weekend experiment. A can you fit under the car? Yes. B how do you even get to the Achilles tendon with your left arm? Reach around or right arm laying on your back so you have more strength. Can you actually use. We're going to use a pen and try to see if we can draw on the back of your ankle. See even someone who is so unaware like myself, I don't. You think you would see someone laying under your car when you walked up to it? Yeah. You're like walking. There's no one in the parking garage. It's empty. It's just your car. You're just. You're you're like, walking out from the elevator. You're on high alert, looking around, making sure no one's around. You see your car? There it is. There's a little light on it, and there's a man underneath it. That's fine, that's fine. It's probably neither here nor there. I would never notice. Just walk the other way. Well that's weird. There's a person under my car. I'm not going to go closer to the item. I'm going to go ahead and take the elevator back to another level. Chat with someone about this. Okay. Total change of topic. Did you have a Scholastic book fair in your small state of California, or do your kids have this Elastic Book Fair? Yes. To both. Do you remember I had, like a visceral feeling in my body, those books called Scary Stories to Tell in the dark. Of course, I didn't realize that most of those are urban legend stories. I didn't know that either. Oh, maybe that's how maybe we used to read instead of be on the interwebs. And that's how we learned about urban legends. And wow, we used to read. Interesting. No, I did, I grew up reading the scary stories I read. R.L. Stine and Christopher Pipe were my two favorites when I was probably in middle school age, like 12 ish and I, they gave me nightmares from an early age. I also liked to watch Cops and Rescue 911 and Unsolved Mysteries. Unsolved mysteries was my jam, but I think that's what got me completely into true crime. I told someone the other day I wasn't raised on TGIF. Remember that on Friday nights? Those shows I was raised on either 2020 with Barbara Walters, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Unsolved Mysteries. I agree, I also was not into TGIF. That was. I don't think I ever watched an episode of Boy Meets World or Family Matters. Like it just wasn't my family's

thing, but I did see plenty of cops shop. This explains how we ended up here with a book club, mainly about murder and scary things, and a podcast about urban legend. I know I also make it sound like my family made me this way. Like my parents let me watch Chucky when I was a child. No, I also watched that at a sleepover party that I was not allowed to watch that. Okay, somebody's parents let them watch Chucky and Nightmares forever. I'm still afraid of gremlins. You can't feed anything after midnight. can we talk a little bit, though, about just the the internet, which we already talked about on an episode? We wish the whole thing would go away, but about how the internet has really impacted the spread of urban legends. Well, are we talking now about urban legends or are we talking about conspiracy theory? Because literally everything I see is a conspiracy theory. Now, that's that's an episode during this election season for a whole nother day. I know can it could. Have you heard the urban legend? Is this how we're going to talk in the future? Have you heard the urban legend that the Democrats created the hurricanes in North Carolina? Okay, listen, I don't care if this is political or not. If you believe that the Democrats are controlling the weather, then. And you are pissed off by this episode. Okay, bye. Because you're obviously not our people, you're way in the wrong camp if you believe that anyone's controlling the weather, if you are conservative, and that's fine. But if you believe that Democrats are controlling the weather, here's my response about that. Okay, so are the Republicans causing fires in California and Oregon and the blue states and Washington? Okay, we're equal or no, Republicans can't figure out how to control the weather. Only Democrats can do it. So Republicans are obviously not smart enough. I don't get it. I don't get it either. Like, is that what your party is saying? Like, we can't figure out how to control the weather, but you are like, that's not good. That's not good. And if we could create the weather, there are just going to not going to say exactly where. There are definitely certain places we would be like boom, tornado there, boom hurricane there. There is no I wouldn't be like Oregon please. reign 362 days of the year. Right. I mean, would we not be using this on, like, international kinds of conflict places? Like we're like, oh no, no need for a hurricane anywhere near Ukraine or Russia. Everything's fine over there I saw a TikTok, which also, if your friendship is not built on sending either TikToks or Instagram Reels back and forth, you're not doing friendship right. I saw one that was a girl and she had taken a sound from, I'm sure, some fantasy movie. I have to find it. That was like wind, water, sun. And she woke up and she was like, just getting ready to use my democratic powers for the day. And she was in her room going like wind, sun, rain, and I died. I am all for a good conspiracy theory that's, like, harmless. I think they're funny. I mean, if you want to talk about how Tupac's alive, I agree. That's fine. We can. We can stop. I will think he's alive until I'm dead and still then. But some of these are just bizarre and so far gone that it's really hard to even listen to them without just laughing. Like it's just silly and just so quickly proven to be wrong by basic science and facts. Have you seen the latest, uh, conspiracy theories about Beyonce? No. Okay, so this is what I. I went down this rabbit hole to figure out what people were talking about. Apparently, Beyonce, our queen bee is a is killing people. Oh, don't. Who don't pander to her or cater to her in Hollywood. And so at award shows you have to thank Beyonce. And if you don't think Beyoncé, if you want in a category that's not hers, then she'll come after you. So now Jojo Siwa hasn't been posting on social media and. She is missing and they think it's Beyonce that did it. She's getting that Adrina Chrom right. Isn't that isn't that it? She's she's still she's part of that child eating anyway. just interesting what people think it is and why they think it and why they continue to. I mean, but also, let's be real. Like, that's the way an urban legend that really is an urban legend spreads just like this. Or misinformation. Only way that we I mean, this gives me a new perspective, right? Like the way that as a child I was that scared of Candyman and believed he was real is the way that some people believe such dis and misinformation. I know it's funny. Well, that's what I'd say. When there were some videos I saw that I was like, okay, okay, you have me interested. That's

compelling. That's a lot of thanks to Beyonce. And like, but now are people just thinking Beyonce because they're worried? Like, I think so, but what's funny about it is or like these are good points, is that then there was one that was like three plus five is eight. There are eight letters in the say its name. You take away the E, the Y, the O, the C and the n, and then put the e, then that's B, and then also Kanye West calls his fiance. Little be it coincidence. You're like what? You are absolutely reminding me. I did see my face hurts so bad from laughing. I did see something about this on Twitter because I'll have to find this decided. Someone listed a tweet and it was another celebrity saying like, I'm here in this like beautiful beach in Tahiti or wherever, enjoying my time. And they circled all these random letters from the words and they were like, don't you see? It says, help me, Beyonce or something like that. Just people finding their own thing to fit their narrative. You know, I love it, I love it. I watched something like that all day. I shouldn't call it harmless because Beyonce is a person and probably doesn't appreciate it if she's innocent of all these allegations. Thanks a lot because she helps people in the industry. I don't know, maybe that's why she could be. Welp, just another light, fluffy and fun topic for everybody this week. Tell us about your urban legends. Because we know we missed a ton. We only wanted to talk about the ones that scared the pants off of us. Yes, and some of you who responded, we love that you had a lot of the same answers as us, because the ones we talked about really scared us. And so many of you were like, yup, the headlights. Yup. The babysitter scared you also and go try Bloody Mary and report back. No thing. Just don't do it. We know it's not a red. Thanks for listening. For more content, find us on Patreon at the Creepy Book Club. Happy reading!