Halloween Urban Legends: Fact or Fiction?

Sifting through spooky stories about Halloween can be tricky. Here are three creepy stories debunked, well, sort of.

Photo by Thalia Ruiz on Unsplash

Halloween abounds with stories that raise the hair on the back of our necks, but how true are they? Are they all fiction, or is there just enough fact mixed in, duping us into believing these farfetched tales?

Here are three Halloween myths debunked. Well, kind of anyway.

LSD Laced Temporary Tattoos

In this Halloween urban legend, it’s believed that unscrupulous drug dealers dolled out LSD-laced temporary tattoos to kids instead of candy to garner new customers. This urban legend has been around since the 1970s.

Gaining New Customers

There are so many things wrong with this legend. Where to start? Let’s address the first piece of silliness: getting new customers. LSD isn’t addictive, so it would make more sense to get new customers with something that would create repeat customers, like an addictive substance.

The Problem with Temporary Tattoos

Dispensing LSD in candy would be great for getting the drug into someone’s system. Temporary tattoos react when they get wet. Placing a liquid on them, even LSD, would render them useless. Not to mention that we can’t absorb LSD through our skin. If you want to get high on LSD, ingest it.

Real Fake News

The legend of LSD laced temporary tattoos began in the 1970s and then resurfaced in 2016 when the story appeared in Empire News, an actual fake news site. Bob the Empire News Potato wrote the article. The report claimed that police discovered LSD tattoos at an elementary school, a complete fabrication.

Halloween Prop or Corpse?

This Halloween urban legend has circulated far and wide for decades.

A person dressed as a scarecrow or some other creepy Halloween favor sits posed on the porch waiting to jump-scare unwitting trick-or-treaters. Then the living prop dies from a heart attack or other silent death and remains part of their spooky Halloween scene for days, sometimes weeks, before anyone notices. Except, it happened, once, sort of.

In 1976, the Six Million Dollar Man shot an episode at the Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. When a crew member arranged the props in the funhouse for filming, the arm (or finger, depending on the source) of a wax figure came off in his hand. To his surprise, the “dummy’s” arm (or finger) contained human bone. It turns out that the wax dummy was Elmer McCurdy, a hobo from Oklahoma who had died after a train robbery with several other men in 1911. The undertaker who received McCurdy’s body preserved him in arsenic. When no one claimed McCurdy, the undertaker made back the time and money he’d put into getting the body ready for burial. He charged people a nickel to take a gander at “The Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up.”

Elmer McCurdy

McCurdy’s mummified body would change hands several times and travel the US as a sideshow attraction until he ended up in Long Beach. An unsuspecting props guy accidentally severed McCurdy’s arm (or finger).

Other Grizzly Discoverers

In 2005, a Delaware woman climbed a tree and hanged herself. Her body remained in the tree, visible to traffic, for several hours before someone identified her as a corpse and not a Halloween decoration.

Then in 2009, 75-year-old Southern California resident Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed lay slumped over on his third-floor balcony for days before police discovered the lifelike dummy was Zayed, who had a single gunshot wound to the head.

In 2015, Ohio construction workers discovered the body of 31-year-old Rebecca Cade. The perpetrator tied Cade’s arms to a fence, and the workers thought she was a Halloween prop. She died from blunt force trauma to her head and neck.

Halloween Pet Murders Myths

“Kill a Pit Bull Day”

In 2012, an email went viral that warned people of “Kill a Pit Bull Day.” The email urged people to keep their pit bulls inside because they may be hurt or even killed by lunatics who had pledged to kill any pit bull they came across on Halloween.

The truth

The viral message was a prank aimed at Slater, Missouri city council member Terry Jordan, who had written a strict “Vicious Dog” Ordinance for Slater. Early drafts of the legislation singled out pit bulls.

Satanists Sacrifice Black Cats on Halloween

Another more persistent Halloween urban legend centers on Satanists and sacrificing black cats. While there is no proof that Satanists have ever harmed a single black cat on Halloween or otherwise, many animal shelters refuse to adopt black cats in the weeks leading up to Halloween. The simple fact is that everyone should keep their pets indoors during Halloween because there is more traffic on suburban streets, raising the potential that your pet will get run over. It’s also advisable to keep your pets away from frequently opened front doors on Halloween. Pets can get frightened by all the ruckus, slip out open doors, and get hurt or lost.

Black Cats & Halloween

The connection between black cats and Halloween goes way back. Tales of sacrificing black cats during the Druid celebration of the Lord of the Dead date back 2,000 years. During the middle ages, there was the belief that witches could disguise themselves as black cats. Many people accused of witchcraft were burned alongside their feline companions.

Myths about black cats

• It’s bad luck to have a black cat cross your path.
• Don’t turn your back on a black cat because it will curse you.
• If a black cat gets in the bed of a sick person, it is an omen of death.

Fun fact: in Asia, black cats are considered a sign of good luck

Black Dog Syndrome

An animal with black fur does not differ from an animal of any other fur color. Black dog syndrome is when people pass up dark-furred animals for adoption over animals with a lighter coat. Shelters find that adopting black-furred pets is complex year-round. Some theories why it’s harder to adopt dark-furred pets are:

• They don’t photograph well for fliers, and the web
• People believe it’s hard to discern facial expressions of dark pets, making it harder to bond with them
• Negative associations with them from media and movies perpetuate superstitions around black animals.

If you are in the market for a new family pet, keep an open mind when checking out the black kitties, doggies, and bunnies. You might find a fantastic companion you might have otherwise overlooked.

Most of what gets spread around at Halloween are fun ghost stories with a kernel of truth at their center. It’s best to do your diligence in debunking outlandish tales instead of blindly believing them. But then again, that Halloween dummy on your neighbor’s porch might be your deceased neighbor.

Author’s Note

Cynthia Varady is an award-winning short story writer and novelist. She is the former host of Demiworld, a dark podcast that examined the underbelly of society. Cynthia lives in Portland, OR with her husband, son, and two kitties.