Nobody Panic - Halloween Special: Urban Legends

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

Have you heard what happened to our friend’s cousin’s friend’s sister??? Stevie and Tessa look at where Urban Legends come from, what they are and then freak each other out by telling them. Trigger warning: some of the crime ones are scary.Produced by Naomi Parnell for Plosive Productions. Edited by Ben Williams.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. It's Lori. We're doing an Urban Legend special because...

I'm afraid of the dark. It's Halloween. Welcome to Nobody Panic the spooky edition. This is an urban legends bonus episode. So excited. I'm Stevie. This is Halloween. Halloween. I am, Tessa.

I've made myself very scared. Tessas has been watching clips from the Candyman. With the sound off to try and grasp the plot. She screamed so loud. She then leapt out of her seat onto the floor while screaming. I didn't know. I know I could travel that far. I really, it was bad.

It's bad. I've never watched it because when I was little, when you used to go to like Blockbuster and you know, there'd be like the horror section and it'd be all the kind of videos, just show my age guys, I'm not 12.

And all the horror movies, it was like Hellraiser and all those things. And I'd always look at them and I'd look at the boxes and Candyman had a bee on the front and I don't like bees. So I was like, oh, what's that? That was just one that,

well, when I read the back, I remember thinking that sounds like the most scary film. I've ever heard of. And I've never watched a clip. I've read the Wikipedia plot summary. That's it. So seeing you watch that and then scream and jump out of your chair

and then me feel so strong and powerful for my choices. Because if you're responding like that, I would never move or sleep or breathe again. With the sound off. Yeah, with the sound off. Which is how I watch horror trailers. Yes, okay. And I also read the Wikipedia plot.

Oh, I love that. It's my favorite thing. I have only watched one. when I was 14 or 12 or 13 we all went to the cinema and watched the ring. You watched the ring at the cinema?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like everybody in the year went. That's horrific. And everyone was like, this will be fine, but it was not fine. No, it's not, the narrator, it was not fine. Spoiler, it was not fine. And she slept with the light on

for nine years. I mean, I watched it at her house, at my friend's house, and obviously, there are pros and cons to that. Pros being like, I'm in a house, so it's not the cinema, it's not loud, I can leave. Kons are, everyone rang the house phone the moment it finished when we watch the DVD extras and you can just watch the film that they watch.

The idea of the ring, sorry. Oh, you can actually watch the ring. On the DVD, yeah. Oh no. So anyone is singing who hasn't watched The Ring. If you don't like horror movies, don't watch it. If you do, do give it a watch. It's amazing.

Naomi Watts, based on an original Japanese version. I'd watch the Naomi Watts version. I found it more scary. I've watched both. The idea is that there's this cassette going around. and if you watch the video, your phone, your house phone rings, and the girl goes like, six or seven days. And in seven days, everyone dies.

And then in the film, you just sort of see how that happens. And on the bonus features, you could watch the video, yeah. So then, but at one point, it didn't happen for a while because we realized that everybody on our like Nokia 3310s, everyone was like jammed it because we were all ringing at the same time trying to scare each other. But then when it did ring, because I'd been like, well, it hadn't got through. When it did ring, we all thought it was real. You just shout yourself.

She comes out of the TV, guys. She comes out of the TV. It's absolutely horrendous. It's a harrowing. You know, it's like horrible, of course, grainy, classic, you know, horror footage. She's got hair all over her face. I mean, she's like on big beard.

I mean, like her hair off my head is over her face. She's got a shave. She's in her white nightgown, black hair. It's like a very classic trope, horror movie trope. She comes out of a pit. And she climbs out of this pit herself. Of course, on like a home camera. It's like horrendous.

But then you're, of course, like, you're like, well it's a spooky thing but it's on the screen. Yeah. She comes closer and closer to the screen. Really slowly. Really slowly. But you're still like, I mean, this is horrendous. And this is the people watching it happen in the room, of course. And then...

Her hand comes out. Her hand comes out of the screen in a way that's just like... Easily the sort of worst bit of the movie because you're like, oh, fuck. Yeah. Like, now the game has changed. Oh, this is just blown... Oh, shit. Why couldn't they have watched it and then seven days had a heart attack?

Why couldn't that... Why didn't that? Why did she need to come for them? That's the most efficient way of killing these people rather than a cursed girl coming out of the... Basically, she, bafflingly... They die of fright. They die of fright.

And then her faces are all twisted, because they're screaming. They also drown. Yes, she drowned. Because she was made to live in a well for seven days. Yes, that was good. And the ring is the ring of light on the roof of the well that she can see in the darkness. So she had a tough time.

Yeah, no one's disputing that. She did not, the abuse became the abuser. Absolutely, yeah. They leave her in a barn with the horses. Just don't do that. And then put her in a well. I think it's actually a very good moral of childcare. Childcare.

Don't put your child in a well at any point. And really consider whether adoption is for you. That's actually the message of the right. Actually, I think it's the adoption agencies that are the real villains of this tale. They shouldn't have let that woman adopt that child. No. What would they do? Poor Samara, if anything, it's actually quite a touching, moving tale.

It is. It's a tragic. chick tail of a young woman on the cusp of life. Before we get into sort of urban legends, look, we're going to go through what it is afterwards. What's your adult thing this week? I don't think I can even tell you. Is it that you watched the candy man from 1992? I know, I watched 22 seconds of the candy man.

I'm going to have to get you to describe that to me as well. I'm going to. We'll do it later. Okay, my adult thing is that I bought a pair of shoes from Bowden. Thank you. They must have been 10 grand. I've never been in a Bowden. I'm so confused by Bowden as a concept.

I feel like Dolly Alderton is Bowden. So I saw it on her Instagram stories. Yes. She had these very sexy shoes on and then I messaged her. I was like, they can't possibly be from Bowden. Bowden make like twin set cardigans. That my nan wears. Lovely.

But my nan enjoys them. Therefore you're now, you know. And no one says like, oh, those shoes are sexy. Are they from Bowden? So I assume... Boden or whistles. Bodin or Hobbs. But I thought it was a joke that she was saying,

these outrageously sexy shoes are from Bowden. Yeah, of course. Turns out, not a joke. So I was like, in a delirious moment was like, well, maybe I want these sexy shoes. They were in the sale. They were not wildly expensive, but they were certainly more expensive than a shoe.

Can you give us a number? Do you feel vulgar? Yes, of course. Get over it. 50 pounds? 50 pounds? That's fine. For shoes of Bowden, that is fine.

They're in their show. That's great. My debit card company shut it down because I thought it was fraud. Well, she couldn't possibly be in Bowden. They literally were like, oh, we've had some suspicious activity. Someone's bought some shoes from Bowden. And I just thought that was...

She goes to carboot cells and pays in cash. She doesn't use that car. She hasn't bought a pair of new shoes in a shop since 1994. So it's winter boots that you bought about three years ago. Thank you so much. You're obviously right. They are genuinely, yes. So sturdy and so good.

Anyway, they shut me down because I know it was fraud, which really made me love. And then actually it was a pleasure to deal with the company that were so good. And they then rang me, Bowden, and were like, we're so sorry. There appears to be some problem. You know, like an immediate customer. You wouldn't get that from New Look. And you certainly would not.

Well, well, quite. As I said to Daisy on the phone. Daisy Bowden. Daisy Bowden from customer services. And she was like, we're so sorry that you've been through this. I was like, it's actually been really hard. Yes. And then the little note said, you've got 365 days to return them.

I mean, what? Heaven's above. This is why. And then you get a little message from Johnny Bowden, who I assume is either fictional or long, long from this world. Okay, yeah. Because I think Bowen's been around for quite a while. Yeah, at least 300 years.

If he's alive and kicking, best of, thank you, Johnny. I'm sure he must be alive, otherwise you wouldn't have got a note. That's, that is macabre, like, a note from, like, the dead founder of Bowden. Well, I'm sure you get a KFC note from the colonel. Every time you get some chicken. I've heard. Just like, you know, it's from, but I thought he was more like Captain Bird's eye or something. Understood, right.

I thought he was, but maybe he's a. real guy. Please do get in touch, Johnny. Anyway, and then you get a note from him thanking you for your custom and saying you've got 365 days to return. No questions asked. Like if they're not for you, give them back. Wow. It was all just like, I was like, holy shit. I shalt on them. So I did a poo in the shoes. Just to test it. And I sent them back. But I was like, wow, I see why people, I see why you pay the money for a good quality thing. I see why being rich is nicer. It's nice. It's a lesson we all learned at some point. And also they were such a good shoe. I mean, of course they were because they're Bowden.

They're classic. You've bought a pair of bodes. I've got some bodes, guys. See, this is why I want, look, guys, I'm aware we've now just become the high low. Well, exactly. That's just how. So I'll try and counter it by saying. You be low.

I mean, I don't, just, just my life is quite low. So, I mean, I can't, I can't, I can't think of an example. Oh, my, my other thing is quite low. Some folks got in the bin of ours last night and then got my gluten-free bread out and then didn't like it. So left it. And so imagine a fox being like, and what I really hope is the fox has like marked our territory and been like, don't bother. Bad bread.

These guys got nothing good. That's excellent. My adult thing is quite low. Low, yeah. As in low bar. So I'll do my adult thing and then I'll do what probably like a rich person would have said. Please. So me, I went around to Tessa's new flat.

She's renting a nice little basement flight in a very cool area. Where the foxes. Where the foxes don't like gluten-free or they're, They like gluten. And I went there, and on the way there, I was like, oh, oh, I should get, like, a little gift, like a house swimming thing to be like, oh, you know, because she keeps referring to her flowers to the shit hole. I'm sure it's not. We're like, let's bright little. Yeah.

So I got some flowers from Liddle because I was like, I didn't know where any florists are. And what if I get there and there's like no Tesco Express? So I was like, go to Liddle. And then I went to a charity shop and bought a vase for like, I don't know, 50p. And then it turned up. And then as I was walking to Jessus' house, there were these incredible florists on the way there. I was like, okay, I should have maybe waited.

Got there, put them in the thing. They didn't really fit, but it looks nice. And if I was a rich person, I'd be like, I sent some flowers to you. A head of roses. No, no, no. As in ahead of yourself. Ahead of schedule.

I was like panicking that. I wasn't using the way. Well, I'm going to say, I sent you a head of roses, ahead of schedule. With a vase that I'd also, you know, matched with the flowers. And did you like them? It was so nice. It doesn't have to be rich what you did.

It was actually lovely. You stole some flowers from someone else's garden and you bought me a vase from trash off. You knew I didn't have a vase and I had a scrap of thing in my house. I didn't know, but I presumed. Yes. Because I know that you're between places.

Twix and between. And you brought me some flowers to liven it up and it was so kind. I think it's an adult thing to do because the old me would have been like, oh, she'd get some flowers. I have to carry them and I don't know what to get a vase from there and panic.

It's lovely to have a good thought and then to fill up. Follow through. The thought to fruition. Oh my God. God, fruition is what it's all about. That and Bowden Shoes. So there we are.

Welcome in, everyone. You've got the measure of us, and now it's time for Urban Legend time. Oh my God. Urban Legend. Did you see the film Urban Legend from the 90s? No, did you see the early 90s show Goosebumps? Yes, absolutely.

Was that Urban Legend full? Yeah, and the books. Oh, yeah, I read all the books. With the double covers. Mm-hmm. And the show, Are You Afraid of the Dark? I mean, of course I watched that. I really think they are responsible for latent millennial anxiety.

I think so as well. There was one that was called The Dark Music and there was like a door and in the basement there was music playing and smoke would come out and it was like whenever anyone went down there they died and I still think about it most nights. There was terrible. There was one where you got stuck in a mirror and then like finally they got them out of the mirror. But then right at the end, her brother like comes back and they're like, oh my God, we did it, we did it. Then she throw, they're like, let's celebrate. She throws him an apple or some shit to celebrate. and then he catches it in the wrong hand. And then just like really quietly she's like, I thought you were left-handed.

And then there's like a moment between them. And then you sort of cut to the mirror where the real one is like banging. It's just. And it was that sort of haunting horror. We were like 10 slash six. And we were watching these. I can't.

I've watched that one and I'd forgotten. And now I'm having a horrible life. That's okay. Because it was always in the back of my brain anyway. And probably the motivation for most of my mistakes. what do you get caught in the mirror It's why I didn't go to the nice florist Because I watched the way for the dark

In the Arctic That's why I bought the Bowden Shoes So I did some research About what an urban legend is Because when I said Oh we should do urban legends Tessa quite fairly It was like

Oh I'll talk about the Diolatov Past mystery Right And then that was a mystery Rather than an urban legend Yes So I said oh you mean like The woman who masturbated with a lobster

And Oh and then the warmth woke up the lobster, it laid some eggs inside her, and 20 days later she gave birth. I said, yes, that's the vibe. So I looked at what an urban legend actually is. The definition of an urban legend is a story that has, in quotation marks,

happened to someone else, and usually contains humorous or horrifying details, but the source is usually never actually known. So when it's someone like, oh my God, have you heard, so it's like a friend of a friend, my cousin's friend. And then you'd always be like, it literally happened. I swear blind. Like, her name is Rachel.

Yeah. And it's like when you actually speak to Rachel about that, it's she's heard it from her friend to a friend. What I find fascinating is whenever there's like a couple of them, which I will relay later on. And I grew up in the northwest of England. And people who grew up in, you grew up in the south, you've heard it. She grew up in the deep south.

You heard it. And our friend Liz grew up in Australia. She heard the story. So like they are really being passed around. And when we were at school, we didn't have the internet, really, in a meaningful sense. not even really. It didn't exist at all. We went to school, we went to primary school

when these were at their peak and up into sort of year nine. Well, the high school ones are like the sex ones or the gory crime ones. Whereas primary school was like quite scary ones. That was primary school for me anyway. But the late 90s, early 2000s were pre-internet. So this is before the day.

We left school when you still texted AQA on 6336. For questions, for you wanted to know something. Yeah. And also, you would finish text with TB, text back. Imagine finishing every WhatsApp with WB. And, guys, welcome, please, our Generation Z or Y or T or whatever, whoever the young group are who've always been alive on the internet, welcome.

Thank you so much for being here. But in our day, each letter of the text cost money? It did. So you had to basically create this sort of like Morse code way to communicate that was as everything was shortened. Yeah, because you'd get your £5.000. top up card. You couldn't say, happy birthday. You had say HB. Oh, absolutely you did. Yeah.

So that's where those things, yeah. So now you can sort of really pinpoint how old we are. So my point is that you couldn't check any of this shit. No. And so when someone's like, I don't believe that, you couldn't just go on Google and look it up and then be like, that's not true. You had to just believe it. And also, you could just fabricate

anything into the story. Absolutely. So if you told it, my point is that, like, if you told the story once and someone was like, yeah, but how did X, Y, Z happen? You'd be like, good point. So the next time you told it, you'd made up a reason, like, how that. Yes, and that's how the urban legend then became watertight. That's how they became watertight.

Watertight. Mw-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w. You could not touch them. But the first use of it, I found, was in 1968 in a book by Harold Brunvard, who it was called The Vanishing Hitchhiker, American Urban Legends and their meanings. And this was quite revolutionary, because then suddenly they realized that urban legends weren't just for, like, in, again, massive quotation marks. And this is the wording of the book, primitive. of cultures. It was like developed Western cultures because the more we could communicate,

the more the urban legend spread. So that's why now, so I'm going to go through like the four different types or five different types. Now, urban legends still exist for young people, but in a completely different way. So like places like Reddit and sort of forums like that, it spread like Slender Man is the best. It's just spread like wildfire and now it's kind of been killed dead because then they made a terrible film called Slender Man, which is just awful. Yes, we don't want to see the film of it. No. As with all of these things, you don't want to see the film.

It's so much better to be told a really good story is, in my mind, the purest form of entertainment. It's the best. I prefer it when you've watched a crime thing or with an amazing twist or whatever and you tell me than me watch the crime thing. Because do you remember in like Edinburgh and we were all like swapping like crime stories that we'd seen on various Netflix shows? I didn't see any of them. And it was just the best. It was the best because I love watching TV shows, but there's something so prime. about being told a story.

Yeah. As humans, we just love. Like, we love someone telling us a story because it immediately feels authentic because you're like, well, you're not liar. I mean, I know you're a liar, but like, those people are. But also, the story you know is like fictional. You're like, I'm happy to get involved with this story. Yeah.

And what I think is also a really key thing about storytelling is that, like, in the, in the early culture when you told a story about like a beautiful princess, whatever, You just made up whatever that princess looked like in your head. Whereas now if that princess is played by Angelina Jolie, you're sort of like, oh, well, now I've got a physical... And it's false. It's a film. Yeah, and it's false.

Whereas she's so much more... She could be all these things in your head if you're just communicating the story. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a crucial thing about you want to believe, even though you know it's not real, probably in your brain. You're like, surely your friend of a friend and your cousin didn't actually have this to happen. Like, this couldn't have actually happened. but you want to believe so much.

So with the current urban legends, I don't know if you've heard of like creepy pasta stories, which is like basically just very copy and pasteable stories on like Reddit or there's loads of different forums for them. And everyone is in on the fact that they're not real, but they just try and like freak each other out as much as possible. Yeah. And then they spread in a way that is almost like people start to kind of feel like they are real

and they are kind of exciting. And I think that's quite a cool thing. It's like we're going back to, like traditional around the fire story. I follow AITA, the Am I the asshole on Reddit? Yes, yes. You can also find it, if you don't like to get into Reddit,

you can also just find it on Twitter. Someone screenshots the best ones. It's literally they're always like, my, brackets 23F, 23 year old female boyfriend, brackets 54 year old. Our relationship is great in every other way except yesterday he came home and shouted on the floor.

I said, please, could you move that? And he hit me. Am I the arse? Yeah, yeah. And all of the men's ones are like my 28F girlfriend. She's sort of getting slightly annoyed that I keep cheating on her. Am I the asshole? You're like, yes.

Yes, it's you. Yes, you are. But sometimes they will be, not obviously fake, but like so absurd that you're like, this can't be real. Which people underneath will post a special Reddit comment, and I'm not o'fay enough to use the special lingo. But it's like fake, but we like it's like, I don't care that this is fake. I'm happy.

It's such good storytelling. It's good content. FBC, fake, FBGC, fake but good content. Great, that's what it may be. It could be, maybe. So should we talk about the different types? Please, tell me. And if you have any that spring to mind.

I'll pop right in. Medical hoaxes. Okay. So one really obvious one is... No, no, can you tell it now, please, correctly. Okay. In the playground. Did you know?

Oh my God. You've got to tell it like it's your... Oh my God, I will. So my cousin. Yeah. Yeah, you know... I'm already sewing. Okay.

You are so articulate for a child. Yeah. You don't have to tell it like we're at the, I just meant like give it the same gravitas. So my cousin. Yeah. Andrew. A name. He's been going out with this girl.

And she, she choose gum all the time. Constantly. She choose gum. Yeah. She's even like, you know, obviously at school, it's not allowed, but she's still choosing. She, whenever the teacher catches her and goes like, oh, you're chewing up, she swallows it. So she's like, no, I'm not. And then it's stuck.

all in the inside of her stomach and then she was rushed into hospital and she's she's now died because all of her insides stuck together she can't poo which is dead

she can't poo for a long time and then she died this and now it's like a classic Stevie thing which is no no nothing just I see as the ending before as you approach the end I see your eyes

gently glaze and then you're like and then she died and also she can't poo Because there were two, there were so many different, and this is the problem that I had with Urban Legends that I never told them. Because the set-up was fantastic.

I don't, because the endings always were like, well, hang on, how, like, either too far or, like, there were too many alternate endings. So one of them is that it just stuck to her insides and now she's really ill. Then I was like, that's not enough. I like, it was so full up her bumhole that she got stuck and then she exploded.

See, I would never believe that. But if she died, I'd be like, wow. because she's dead. Okay. I have a worse one. There are certain elements that I don't quite know. You got to make them up?

Yeah, but then I'll make the wrong ones up and it won't make sense. No, no, no, commit. Believe in yourself. Okay. Just make it up and say it with panache. So you know we from high school. Who?

Sorry. All right. All right. So there was a high school that was called we from high school that was in our town. And whenever there was an urban it was always like, oh my God.

So it was like Laura from like we're like, we played her against like with like, netball last week. She plays goal attack. Of course she is. Laura's a goal attack. Laura's a goal attack.

She's got something weird going on. The point is, is that I don't know if you've seen in the news that these like, someone's been breaking into the morgue, which is like obviously horrible. But nothing's been even happening and no one kind of understands why. But like someone's been breaking into the morgue. And then, now, then, oh my God, then is the worst. Then, do you know Ben? Who like sometimes comes to school to school dances by Fit Ben.

Yes. Yeah. So Laura's been going out with Ben and they've started like doing the going down thing. Yeah. Anyway, oh God, I can't actually because it's the worst. I'm not going to tell the story probably because it's so horrible. There's basically an urban legend that I was told where someone was breaking into the moor. Yeah. No one knew why. Separately, someone had maggots because they'd been having sex with the dead people. And the girl found out because when they were like doing stuff, there was like maggots on his penis. Is it the worst thing you've ever heard in your whole life?

Also, I'm so sorry for children and grandparents listening. I heard that it was, he worked at the morgue. Oh my God, great. So that gave you an inn. Rather than it's on the news. I'm terrible. No, you're so, stop this. Go on.

And that he, she went to the doctor with an STD. The doctor's like, you've got this STD, but we only see this popping up in corpses. I don't understand how you could have got this. Really clever, okay. See, that's so clever. That's so much clever than there's maggots on his penis. No, that's perfect.

A maggot stuck underneath his foreskin. Yeah, oh, God! I'm better at telling the crime ones, which is the next category. Hard crime. Okay. So, we've all heard this one, I think, anyway. Couple, they're making out. They're making out in the forest.

And they've gone to, like, a secluded place to make out. Their boyfriend is like, oh, I'm just going to go and have a wee. She's like, oh, it's really dark outside. Can we just like, don't. Let's just go back. And he's like, no, no, no, I want to carry on this sweet make-and-out session. Where are they just, the two of them walking along? Like a very, no, they're in a car.

They're in a car. They've pulled up into a wood. Oh, in like a make-out spot. Oh, in like a make-out spot. Great, great, great. She's like, I'm, like, I'm, so already didn't tell all the details. She's like, he's going to just pop out, have we. She's like, oh, can I just say this is such a good story.

It's good story, isn't it? No, as in you're telling this so good. You're so welcome. You're so welcome. Right. He pops out. She's like, he's gone for ages. She's like, oh, I'm going to have bored.

She's, he's left the engine running. They wanted to keep warm, drawing the make out. She turns on the radio. And it's these details that are setting it apart. It's fantastic. He's called Benjamin. Fantastic. Or Benedict.

Anyway, so she turns the radio on because she's bored. And it's the news. The news radio is saying that there's been a breakout in a nearby high security, maximum security prison. And it's like a psychotic killer. He's on the loose. She doesn't really think much of it. but she just started to get a bit freaked out

because her boyfriend's gone and she's like, oh God, come back. Anyway, suddenly she hears police sirens and she just presumes there's going to be like an ambulance and it's going past, but it's not. It's loads of police cars. They all circle her around the car. Someone gets the megaphone out and they're like, leave the car, leave the car.

And suddenly she's like, hang on, she can hear this like banging on the roof of the car, like a weird sort of, not like a bang, you're sort of like this. Like that? And she's like, what? And so then the guy, the policeman is like calling through the microphone. She's hearing this, this noise.

He's like, get out of the car and walk towards us. Get out of the car. Get out. Don't look back. Get out of the car. She's quite freaked out. She opens the car door. She gets out.

She starts walking. Everyone's going, don't look behind you. Don't. And this noise is continuing behind it. She looks behind her. There's a crazed killer on the roof of the car. And he's got her boyfriend's head and he's just smashing it on the top of the car window. Good urban legend, right?

Good urban legend. That was the one that we got a lot. That was very, very well told. It's because I told it a million times. And also, like, had it told to me so many times. You did great. Thank you. Halloween.

Well done. So I've got a crime one. Okay, great. Girl is driving along at night, and she is on a particularly difficult and, like, dangerous road. and there's a siren start behind her, and she tries to, like, she can't pull over. And she's like, oh, shit, I must be speeding or whatever.

Oh, bloody hell. Oh, bloody hell. She's from the north. Oh, bugger. All right, yeah. She thinks she's speeding, and she's, like, trying to flash. She, like, puts a hand out and waves to be like, I can't stop. And then they're still, like, flashing there right on her tail.

And she's like, she doesn't want to be in trouble for, like, police avoidance. So she calls 911. and she's like, I'm really smart girl. And this is before it was illegal to use telephones in the car. And she, otherwise, she'd be really fucked. And they're like, anyway, she calls 999. She's like, I'm really, really sorry. I can't.

They're flashing me, but I can't pull over. Please, will you tell them I'm not trying to escape? And they're like, yeah, of course, just tell us the, where are you? And we'll radio the police car. And so she says exactly where they are. And he says, can you see their number plates? And she reads the number plate to the car. And then the operator says, okay, ma'am, you're going to keep driving and you're going to

keep driving. and she carries on driving and another police car meets her along the route and then another one and then the police car that was behind her turns its lights off and starts driving away and it wasn't a police car at all it was just a guy with flashing lights

on the top of her car on the car who was going to pull her over and there was a spate of him pulling over women on the side of the road oh it's horrible but also it's crucial I see the girl has to get away the girl must get away where did the story come from Exactly.

Very clever, very smart. Sorry, and then they catch him. And then they catch him, obviously, and then everyone's okay. Then they catch him, he goes to jail, and it turns out no one ever got hurt. So if you've seen the 90s film Urban Legend is really good because it compiles loads of those. Does that one happen? No, but there's one that's similar, which is a girl is, is, she pulls up, she's driving, driving, running late, late, late, late, late night, driving range, she pulls up to a petrol station.

And there's this very, the guy that works at the petrol station to the middle of nowhere is very quite creepy. and he has, like, sort of has quite, it's not fair, but he has quite a scary stutter. He looks quite scary. Oh, yeah. He has no kind of like sense of special awareness. And he's sort of standing there. And she's trying to fill up and she feels incredibly frightened and incredibly uncomfortable. And she's sort of filling up the petrol.

And then she's trying to pay and he's sort of, he's trying to tell us something. But then he's sort of like, lurching towards her. And she's like, oh, I don't know. Gets in the car. And then as she drives off, he screams, there's someone in the back of your car. And that's where he's been trying to tell her the whole. time and that's why he's been like and so in the film it's i think she like probably got a head chopped off or something but there's something about yeah someone being in the back of the car that i hate

that but the other so the other category of legend is the one that's spread on the internet so like slender man which doesn't actually have so what's the category called it's called like internet creepy pasta would be the kind of thing because that's where it all comes from and no no what's if one's called like medical hoaxes and crime stories what's this third category called it is called just like literally spread through the internet. Because it's kind of changed, because it can be any sort of urban legend, but it's just the way in which it's disseminated is so different.

I understood. And also like the way people deal with it is so different because they know it's not real, but then the Slender Man thing is different because the Sender Man is just... Tell me what is Slender Man? It started because somebody doctored a photo to show a really like distortingly tall man

in the background of these like old historical photos then put them online. And then like a quote being like, no one knows who this man is. these children were never seen again or whatever. And it complete, like, lie, but like fun. Fun. And then it really caught the attention of everybody.

So then people started telling stories about Slender Man and about how they'd seen this, like, tall, scary man in the woods before something terrible happened or sightings of it. You'd see, like, old photos. And then quite a lot of old photos that have, like, a flash distortion. And if you look at it, it looks like it could be a very tall man, or like a blur. And Slender Man became, like, just everyone was, like, talking about him on the

internet. And then in 2014, two very young girls stabbed another girl at school saying that Slender Man made them do it and they were doing it for Slender Man. Yeah. And then in 2014, there were loads, there was actually, I'll get them up because there were actually quite a few full crimes. So after the hearing, after hearing the story on the news about these, um, stabbing they were in, I'm going to say Waukesha in the United States. So after hearing the, story in the news, a woman from Ohio told a TV reporter that her 13-year-old daughter had also attacked her with a knife and had written like macabre fiction involving Slender Man who said, the mum said motivated the attack. And then in 2014 as well, a 14-year-old girl set her family's

house on fire. Oh my God. While her mom and a nine-year-old brother were inside because she'd been reading online stories about Slender Man. And as well as this is also a story called the Soul Eater. So this is like young girls who've obviously, you know, they've got other stuff going on. And they've not latched onto the fact that this is fake. Well, look how we responded to, like, watching the ring at that age. Absolutely. But we didn't have the internet or any sort of means to do anything else with that extreme energy, apart from just not sleep and tell each other stories.

Whereas if you'd had more of an outlet or anyone telling you, you know, you're so impressionable. So impressionable. And all it takes is for you to read these stories or read a story and not know that it's not supposed to be real. And then you're done. Then you're like, you know, it's, but yeah, so then there was like a documentary, which is quite a good one called Beware the Slender Man. And that was all about this kind of, just the cult status of this, like, and there's a really fun and terrifying game called Slender Man as well.

There's just like horrifying. And he's like popping out of the woods and oh my God, it's horrible. And the noise is horrific. But then it got killed because the terrible film was made. And it was just awful. And everyone was like, Slenderman is dead now. And then actually the reaction to the stabbings, Slender Man slowly became, there was loads of stories told about him that he,

he was actually quite a nice, like he would protect children. And there was like, Skinny Sally was like a little girl who he would be holding to show that, like, he wasn't, he didn't kill children because it was always surrounding children and killing children and trying to manipulate children and stuff. But it's so fascinating how these things are so, they just become so real because you want them to be real. It's the whole point of an urban legend.

Of course. Well, an origin tale of a similar thing in the sort of mid-century in that, like very spooky, you. mid-America time when everyone's wearing like sort of cheesecloth. Oh, I understand. And braces. The famous cheesecloth and braces, a mid-America time. That's what it's called.

You know, like, very spooky. They're on a prairie, but it's spooky. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's spooks. That's a horrible look. It's very... It's a bad look.

It's like a very spooky look. So that sort of time. Who's to say what time it is? But, you know, we all know it. It could still be sort of now. In what I'll say is Massachusetts. Okay. Could be.

That's not mid-American, but... Is it not? No. Oh, well. So somewhere in America at this time, there is a man called No Face Charlie. Oh, no. Oh, no. Face Charlie.

Oh, no. Who is seen at night. Right. Sorry. Oh, God. Yeah, right. Yeah, is he? Right.

Yeah. Walking around. He's walking. He's walking through fields. He's often seen in tunnels. Right. I am on board No I know it's awful isn't it

It's just wearingly terrifying In that spooky And people who have seen him say He hasn't got a face So Imagine Did you see that man that was out of the day He hasn't got a face

No, I didn't did he? No I'm not as a face But smooth Alone Like an egg Alone in the dark And you see this

Faceless man Faceless man No face Charlie So of course he became the thing Of total legend Why didn't everyone just leave the town I could immediately leave Mid-America cheesecloth time.

Oh, they had the cheesecloth. You haven't got money. Cheesecloth is that fabric. Yeah, I know. They had cheesecloth and it was just... You can't just move town because of No Face Charley. You've got a good in Manhattan if you're wearing cheesecloth. You just had to become one of those women who's like, oh, this town's got some dark secrets.

Oh, I've seen him at nice. I've seen... No-faced child. We know him. We don't speak of him. We can't afford to move, you know? Because of my cheese cloth. Because of cheese.

We're just trapped in this, you know, joyless, loveless town being terrified by... And a joyless, loveless marriage? Yeah. Exactly. Anyway, after many years and many, many, many sightings of No Face Charlie. So he wasn't just like a spooky story. He was like, he had been seen. Reporters managed to track, like, tracked him down.

Imagine how terrified you'd be actually seeing No Face Charlie and coming across him and shouting his name and him stopping in the tunnel and turning to you with his no face. Turned out to be a man who lived right on the edge of town who had been terribly disfigured in an electrical accident and he said people were scared of him so he just took to walking at night so he wouldn't scare anyone. Oh, don't walk at night.

You should go around with muffins and be like, hello? Hello, I'm your neighbour. Would it be okay to look upon my disfigured face? I hope so. I hope not to scare you any more by walking at night alone in tunnels. In my tunnels. That is number one.

If you live on the outside of a cheesecloth town and you've had an electrical accident, don't walk around at night. That is root one. Top tip, number one. Oh, that's so sad because that often rooted in quite sad things. In terrible, very believable tragedy. Slender Man was probably just quite tall and quite hungry.

Quite tall, hungry guy who just was on the edge of the crop field. And then when people saw him, he... Trying to eat some wheat. He sparked. He sparked. He was that word. He's gothap. Thank you so much.

He, anyway, so then No Face Charlie, whose name wasn't Charlie. It was Robin. I don't believe he's called Robin there. No, but said with confidence. He did have a name who's a real guy. then he was embraced by the cheesecloth town, which became a boom town. And everyone lived happily ever after. But to the end of his, he didn't go out walking anymore.

Oh, but he could go in the day. Because he could go in the day now. And everyone wouldn't be scared of him. Look, a nice ending to a urban legend. A nice ending to a spooky, spooky day. Story. Um, Lord. So also I was going to make a point, which is like, in a way, you know, it's like fake news stuff.

That's urban legend in a way. Yeah. And it's just like, do you like the story? In which gift doesn't matter if it's fake. Yeah. You know? Fake, but good content. Do you have one to end on?

This is just one in the list of urban legends called The Baby Train, which I was obviously like, oh, no. It's a train of babies. But it turns out just to be an enormous spike in birth rates in another Midwest cheesecloth American town. Of course. That hundreds of babies were just born at the same time. And over the next space of a month.

And everyone was like, what earth is this? and they thought there was like water, something in the water, some, you know, and it was like people, government officials were sent to investigate it because it was so outrageous. It was like, I don't know, it was way over, a million babies were gone. I was like, don't go into numbers. Don't even guess a number. Anyway, they went to investigate, they couldn't find anything wrong with the place,

looked up what had happened nine months earlier, and for two weeks, a freight train had been passing through and blowing its whistle at 5.30 a.m. every morning, which then all the locals were like, well, too early to get up for work and too late to go back to sleep. They all bones. Everyone just bone and made these babies. And it was like a genuine government mystery of like how all these babies had arrived. That's so funny.

It's just the whistle train. That's so funny. So it's quite sweet for something that we've called the baby train. I think that was a mystery not an urban legend though. Oh, stop. But I like mysteries as well. So I think we're going to include it. Thank you.

Absolutely. I was only like, I was only because I read about it today and I was like, I think it's quite sweet one. Eating spiders at night. Someone told me that they're, um, that, um, that, friend for friend of a friend. They at their customary, I mean, at that point, we were saying it was around sort of 10 a night that you were eating. Apparently, it's like one a year that claws into your mouth.

Because why would they crawl into a hot pit that's breathing carbon dioxide at them? They're not morons. Anyway, spider crawls in. She doesn't realize four weeks later. She's just, I don't know, let's say she's probably on a date. They're getting off with each other. And then a million spiders come out of her throat. No, no.

Because it's hatched. It's egg. He's just trying to get off of these spiders. That's the, yeah. That's really bad. Oh, that is so bad. It's so bad. Oh, that's awful.

Oh, that's awful. I've got one. Leave us on a, on a banger. Come on. I tell you this tiny thing to leave. And I genuinely believe this happened to a woman in my village. Okay. Until it was told to me by somebody else.

And I was absolutely furious. So again, if you question them, they're like, oh, no, it wasn't me. It was, I heard that from, from Susan. I heard it from her. In my mind it was first term. Jane is,

her mother is away on holiday and Jane is, you know, her mother's sort of into her 80s and has this old, old dog, he's a greyhound. Or a sort of Irish wolfhound. One of those boys. Love those boys.

But he's old, he's terribly old. Gentle boy. Gentle boy. And while the mother is away on holiday and Jane's looking after this dog, she's house sitting, the Irish wolf found, he passes gently away in his sleep.

and he's quite a big boy and Jane doesn't obviously wouldn't want this body the dog just to be there you know she's like well what I'll do is I will take him and I'll have him cremated and I will have the things ready for

when mother comes home and we can you know spread his ashes and that'll be lovely and so she's very somber but it was an old dog and she's you know and she tells her mom and everyone's very sort of calm about it and it's all okay and so Jane is now like well now I need to get

this dog to the crematorium yes but it's quite a big Irish wolfhound and so she puts him into a suitcase because she needs to get him across town on the bus and Jane doesn't drive so she does her own mode of transport so she puts this big dog wraps him in a lovely blanket you know and puts him in the suitcase and takes him to the bus stop and as she's boarding the bus it's quite quite heavy bag and this sort of nice young gentleman is like can I help you with your bag and she's like oh my goodness thank you what a lovely kind thing to do of course and you know and she's gets on and she you know he goes to place the bag at which point he runs off with the suitcase oh my god steals it from her and she watches him run down the road and then he disappears he takes it he's gone he's then she's never never to be seen again but the obviously the magic of the story is imagining this opening the suitcase being like hey he he dead dog woman going on holiday

with big suitcase massive dead dog so good Oh, no, maybe my one. One more. It's a bonus. It's a bonus one. It's a long episode. It's a long episode. That's fine.

This is from our friend, our actual friend. Oh my God. But I don't. Is it? Yeah. Said that a girl he knew. So there we go.

Went to the nice, classy boyfriend's family home for the first time. Goes running upstairs to find the bathroom, not super well. And it's like, and it's one of those quite classy houses, but every time you open a room, you're like, oh, it's the sewing room. Jesus Christ. The room for socks. Oh, what's this?

And, like, you know, just can't, every door looks the same, can't find the bathroom. Eventually finds what she thinks of the bathroom. It's like, oh, thank God, but it's just a bath and the sink. And you're like, oh, Jesus Christ. So she's like, forget it. This door has a lock. Lock the door, whatever. Sink.

Look. Should it out. Actually, what she should have done, but she instead goes for the sink. Of course. So she sits on the edge of the sink. She's like, this is no problem. That's where we cut away in the film. Okay.

And so we leave her there, we cut away, we cut to the family at the, hmm. Jeremy, where's so? Where is she? Who's so numb? This is me just, to cut that's cutlery. Yeah. Just do some cutlery.

Just gently, tickle, tinkle. She seems to we've gone a long time. Oh. Should we go and, she's okay? How is she or where is she? So then they go upstairs to find her. Oh, no. Water on the landing.

They opened the door. She's concussed. Ass up. On the floor. She'd sat on the sink. The sink had come away from the hinges. She had careered forward, hit her head on the edge of the bath, knocked herself out.

The plumbing water was just squirting out. And she's just ass up, trousers down. Shatters down. She's, well, who's to say? where the shit is at this point. Probably somewhere. Probably somewhere. While water floods the floor and she's unconscious in the bath.

Look, great urban legend to enter. Well done everybody. And with that, happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Please tell us your urban legends. Tell us the murders that happened in your, that people said happened at school. Tell us the thing that somebody's cousin did.

Oh my God, please. Tell us the thing that your aunt escaped from the jaws of death. Tell us, tell us it all. At Nobody PanicPod, tweet us. I'm up for a thread. If you want to tweet me a thread story, tweet it. Or write it in your notes and screenshot it.

Or if you want to send us an email, Nobodypanic podcast at gmail.com. We want to know stories. And I'm at Stiviam. This is a five. I'm at Tessicoats. Mm. Mm.

Have a great Halloween. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.