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Something Told

Folklore, legends, living tradition, internet-native lore.

220 entries · page 3 of 5
Disputed
Roland Doe
A 14-year-old boy who, Catholic sources said in 1949, had been freed from possession by the devil by a priest. His case inspired the novel The Exorcist.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
Shakchunni
A female spirit of Bengal, the spirit of a married woman who died with her longing for household life unfulfilled.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Religious tradition
Shambhala
A hidden kingdom of Tibetan Buddhism, ruled by the future Buddha Maitreya and told of in the Kalachakra tantra.
Provenance · Religious tradition
Something Told
Folklore
Sigbin
The sigbin is a goat-like night creature of Philippine folklore, said to drink blood from its victims' shadows. A Facebook video said to show one caught in Surigao City was rated false by Rappler in 2020.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
Sonjō and the weeping woman of Akanuma
In a dream, a weeping woman stands at Sonjō's pillow and asks why he killed her husband. They were happy together at Akanuma, she tells him.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
Swedenborg and his predicted death
Emanuel Swedenborg's life ended in London on 29 March 1772, the day he had foretold when writing to John Wesley.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
Tanganyika laughter epidemic
An outbreak of contagious laughing that began among schoolgirls near Lake Victoria in Tanganyika in 1962 and spread to nearby villages. Christian F. Hempelmann described it in 2003 as mass psychogenic illness.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Religious tradition
Taniwha
Taniwha are supernatural beings in Māori tradition, often guardians of water, whose forms vary between tribal traditions. In 2002 Ngāti Naho's objection on behalf of a taniwha led Transit New Zealand to reroute part of a Waikato highway.
Provenance · Living tradition
Something Told
Folklore
Teke Teke
A Japanese ghost story about a girl cut in two by a train who moves on her hands. The name comes from the sound she makes.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
Tepegöz
Tepegöz is a one-eyed monster in the Book of Dede Korkut, a collection of Turkic epic tales. A. Guseynova says he was born to a shepherd and a peri, and Wikipedia says Basat killed him.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The 1910 Halley's Comet panic
In May 1910 Earth was due to pass through the tail of Halley's Comet. Newspapers ran warnings of poison gas, and people bought gas masks and "anti-comet pills".
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Documented
The 1924 Mars radio silence
In August 1924, when Mars passed close to Earth, the US Navy ordered the country's radio stations quiet for a five-minute pause every hour from 21 to 24 August, so listeners could pick up any signal from Mars.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Religious tradition
The 37 nats of Myanmar
The 37 nats are the chief spirits of Burmese folk religion, each said to be a person who died a violent death. Believers in Myanmar honour them with offerings and festivals, including a yearly gathering for the Taungbyon brothers that draws tens of thousands.
Provenance · Religious tradition
Something Told
Claimed sighting
The 5 May 2000 planetary alignment
Predictions said a lineup of planets on 5 May 2000 would cause global disaster. Skeptics replied that gravity from the planets is tiny.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Religious tradition
The Aghori
A group of Hindu ascetics devoted to Shiva as Bhairava, known for rituals that set aside ideas of purity, and for a leprosy ashram run by an organisation of its tradition.
Provenance · Religious tradition
Something Told
Folklore
The Armero curse
Armero, Colombia, was destroyed by mudflows from the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in 1985, and over 23,000 people died. In Armero Guayabal some people still say a murdered priest had cursed the town.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Aurora, Texas airship crash
An 1897 Dallas Morning News story by S. E. Haydon told of an airship crashing at Aurora, Texas, and its pilot being buried in the town cemetery. The Texas State Historical Association calls the story fiction.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Beast of Bladenboro
In December 1953 and January 1954 dead dogs turned up around Bladenboro, and talk of a vampire-like beast spread.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Documented
The Brocken goat experiment
On 17 June 1932, psychic researcher Harry Price staged a ritual on the Brocken in Germany's Harz Mountains. The aim was a goat transformed into a young man, and reporters were invited.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Christmas Tree Ship Rouse Simmons
The schooner Rouse Simmons, carrying Christmas trees to Chicago, was lost with her crew on 23 November 1912.
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Disputed
The Cock Lane ghost trial
On 10 July 1762 five people stood trial at the Guildhall in London, on a conspiracy charge brought by William Kent, over the Cock Lane ghost affair.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The Count of St Germain's death record
A church register in Eckernforde records the Count of St Germain's death on 27 February 1784. Later writers say he never died.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The Curupira
The curupira is a forest guardian of Brazilian folklore, said to have backward-turned feet that throw off anyone tracking it. It has become a conservation symbol, most recently the mascot of COP 30 in Belém.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Defenestration of Prague survival legend
On 23 May 1618 Protestant nobles threw Catholic officials from a window of Prague Castle. Each side later gave rival explanations for why they survived.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Denison saucer report
On 25 January 1878 the Denison Daily News printed a farmer's account of a flying object near Denison, Texas, said to look like a saucer.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Depok babi ngepet hoax (2021)
In April 2021 a video of a wild boar being put into a cage drew crowds of residents in Bedahan, Sawangan, Depok, as a babi ngepet. Police declared it a hoax and arrested the organiser, a local religious teacher, whom a court sentenced to four years in prison.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Emilcin abduction
Polish farmer Jan Wolski said that on 10 May 1978 two small beings climbed onto his cart and led him to a glowing craft.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers
The keepers of the Flannan Isles lighthouse were found missing on 26 December 1900 when the relief ship Hesperus arrived. Newspapers of the time offered several supernatural explanations.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
The Flying Dutchman
A sailors' story of a ghost ship seen in storms near the Cape of Good Hope, in print by 1790. It later fed Marryat's 1839 novel, Heine's writing and Wagner's 1843 opera.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Ghost of Kyiv
A story of a lone Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot who shot down six Russian planes over Kyiv spread within a day of the 24 February 2022 invasion. Reports describe it as a wartime legend.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The Gold of Tolosa
A treasure the Roman commander Quintus Servilius Caepio took from Tolosa, now Toulouse. Ancient writers said it brought ruin on everyone who touched it.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Hoax, proven
The Great Moon Hoax of 1835
From 25 August 1835, the New York newspaper The Sun ran six articles describing life and civilisation on the Moon, wrongly credited to the astronomer John Herschel.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Hakkoda snow march disaster
On 23 January 1902, 210 soldiers of an Imperial Japanese Army regiment set out on a snow march in the Hakkoda Mountains. 199 died. Ghost stories about the dead soldiers were told in the barracks soon after.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Documented
The Hammersmith ghost shooting
On the night of 3 January 1804 an excise officer in Hammersmith shot a man he took for the neighbourhood ghost.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
The Indian rope trick
A street-magic feat in which a rope climbs into the sky and a boy follows it out of sight. Some historians trace its fame to a newspaper story printed in 1890.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The Inverness Courier Loch Ness report
The Inverness Courier, on 2 May 1933, carried a report of a large creature seen in Loch Ness. The sighting it described had happened earlier, on 15 April 1933 according to British Online Archives.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Joyita found adrift
The merchant ship Tuvalu found the Joyita adrift on 10 November 1955 north of Vanua Levu, Fiji, with every passenger and crew member gone.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
The Kelso B-25 crash
On 1 August 1947 a B-25 carrying two Army Air Forces officers crashed near Kelso, Washington. Both died. They had been investigating the Maury Island sighting.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
The Kinross incident
On 23 November 1953 a US Air Force jet sent to check an unknown radar target over Lake Superior merged with it on radar and the jet disappeared.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The Livonian Christmas werewolves
Men changed into wolves gather on Christmas night, attack people and animals, and lay siege to houses standing alone in the woods.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Mapinguari
The mapinguari is a large, hairy forest monster of Amazonian folk belief. The zoologist David Oren argued it may preserve a memory of giant ground sloths, an idea other scientists opposed.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Marlborough skeleton ship report
In October 1913 newspapers reported that the ship Marlborough had been found with the skeletons of her crew on board. The reports placed the find near Cape Horn or in the Strait of Magellan.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Mattoon gasser
On 31 August 1944 a Mattoon, Illinois couple reported a strange smell, sickness and a paralysed wife, the first of the gasser incidents.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Maya 2012 doomsday prediction
The date 21 December 2012 drew predictions of cataclysm, because a cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar ended then. NASA said the idea of a Maya prophecy of the world's end rested on a misconception.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The Menehune
In Hawaiian tradition the Menehune are a small, very active people who finished any work in a single night. Old stonework, including the Kīkīaola ditch on Kauaʻi, is credited to them.
Provenance · Living tradition
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Mongolian death worm
The Mongolian death worm, or olgoi-khorkhoi, is a deadly worm described to the zoologist Roy Chapman Andrews on his Mongolian expedition, in an account first printed in English in 1922. Expeditions to the Gobi have looked for it and found nothing.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
The Octavius ghost ship
A legend of a ship found drifting west of Greenland with its whole crew frozen dead below deck. Frank M. Schuster, writing in Polar Record in 2022, links it to an unnamed-ship story printed by the New York Gazette in 1828 under the headline Awful Discovery.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The Odiyan
In rural Kerala, Odiyans were people said to shapeshift into animals at night and to scare people to death.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Documented
The Paisley witches' executions
On 10 June 1697 people convicted of witchcraft after the Bargarran trial of 1696 were executed at Paisley's Gallow Green in Scotland.
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Folklore
The Peckham letter on Spring-heeled Jack
An anonymous letter from a Peckham resident, complaining of pranksters in villages around London, was made public by the city's Lord Mayor on 9 January 1838.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7