Urban Legends

By Luke MordueSociety & Culture Science Social Sciences True Crime

Urban Legends episodes

October 15 Black-Eyed Children
In 1996, outside a cinema in Abilene, Texas, a man sitting in his car late at night heard a knock on the window. It was two children standing outside, asking to be let inside. This seemed strange enough as it was, but it was only when this man looked into their eyes that the horrors truly began, as their eyes were completely black.
'The Black Eyed Children' were first reported by local journalist Brian Bethel, and since then, similar visitors have been described at front doors and car windows across America and Britain for years now, but just who are they? And what do they want?
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27 min
September 30 Boo Hag
In the Gullah Geechee communities of coastal South Carolina and Georgia, waking up unable to move with a weight on your chest has one explanation.
A boo hag has been riding you.
Across the world, cultures tell of something that climbs onto sleepers in the dead of night and pins them down. But why is this story so persistent? And if it keeps appearing across so many places and centuries, what is really happening?
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29 min
September 16 Corpse Light
Across Wales, England and Ireland, people once said that a small flickering light drifting along a lane at night was a warning that someone nearby was about to die.
The 'Corpse Light', also known as the corpse candle or canwyll corff, was first recorded in detail by the Welsh minister Edmund Jones in 1780, who gathered accounts from his own parishioners of lights tracing the exact path a funeral would later take to the grave. Although what were these sightings really?
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19 min
May 01 The Kraken
The Kraken belongs to a 600-year tradition of Scandinavian sea monsters; creatures so vast that medieval sailors mistook their backs for islands and landed on them.
The word itself is said to have first appeared in a Norwegian glossary in 1646, but by the 1750s, Erik Pontoppidan was cataloguing fishermen's accounts in his ‘Natural History of Norway’, treating the creature not as folklore but as a species awaiting classification.
But what were these sailors actually seeing? Was it mass hysteria? Mistranslated whale sightings? Or genuine encounters with something the world hadn't named yet?
In this chapter, I trace the Kraken from 13th-century Norwegian texts to the harpoon scars left on dying sperm whales and to 2004, when researchers finally photographed a living giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time in human history.
This is Urban Legends.

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45 min
May 01 Jersey Devil
In this chapter, we delves deep into the urban legend of the 'Jersey Devil'. From its roots in the Pine Barrens and the Leeds family story into the 1909 wave of sightings, when strange tracks, alleged attacks, and public fear spread across South Jersey and beyond.
Join us as we examine what was actually reported, how the story travelled, and what the panic reveals about rumour, media, and the human need to give a name and a shape to the unknown.
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53 min
May 01 Skinwalkers
Some stories are kept secret for a reason, and among the Diné, the figures outsiders call 'skinwalkers' is one of them.

In this chapter, we examine how this subject sits within Diné teachings about witchcraft rather than monsters, why many details are not shared publicly, and how 19th-century accusations, modern reporting, and internet mythmaking reshaped the idea for the rest of the world.

We separate community perspectives and documented history from hearsay and pop-culture distortion. To many, the Skinwalker is another Urban Legend, but to those who know its secrets, it is far more than that.
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55 min
May 01 The Satanic Panic
**Trigger Warning: This chapter involves harm to children.**
In this chapter, let's delve into the urban legends that brought forward what is now known as 'The Satanic Panic‘, from the first sensational cases and flawed investigations to the media frenzy and courtrooms that followed. We’ll look at how fear, politics, and culture combined to create a moral wildfire, one that still echoes in today’s conspiracy movements.
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1 hr 15 min
May 01 Mermaids
From ancient carvings and medieval manuscripts to shipwreck songs and seaside myths, 'Mermaids' have haunted human imagination for centuries.
Over the years, they have been a symbol of beauty, danger, sin, and even salvation. But where did these beings come from, and why have they endured in so many cultures across the world?
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1 hr 19 min
May 01 Banshee
Let's trace the eerie wail of one of Ireland’s most enduring legends, the 'Banshee'.
Often dismissed as myth or metaphor, the Banshee is more than just a ghostly woman who cries in the night. Her story shifts across time and region, tangled in ideas of ancestry, grief, and death itself.
This unsettling figure has followed generations through the centuries but just what is she? and what does she want with us?
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54 min
May 01 A Stranger Calls
In this chapter, we answer the chilling call of a legendary urban legend that has left us with frayed nerves for generations: the ominous words, "The call is coming from inside the house."

Join us as we unravel the origins, eerie narratives, and psychological terror behind this haunting urban legend. We'll explore how it has become a timeless cautionary tale, rooted in genuine fears and anxieties, as it taps into our deepest concerns about safety, the unknown, and the places we call home whilst also studying the true crime cases that connect to its origins.
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43 min

About Urban Legends

From the publisher's feed

Luke Mordue examines the historical impact of the stories that haunt our society, tales that have gripped towns and cities worldwide for centuries as actual events - Urban Legends. First, hear the…