The Urban Legend, Myths and Rumours Thread

I come from a very strange place.

I really honestly thought that by the time that I was an adult, I would stop finding people who don’t know where Newfoundland is. But I run into people that don’t know that there’s fairly large island floating next to Canada with an alarming frequency.

Oddly, this isn’t all that uncommon historically speaking-at least part of Newfoundland was once called the Isle of Demons on maps. Like I said, I come from a very strange place.

The Old Hag is one of the cultural exports, for lack of a better term, that appears to be gaining interest outside of the island. Effectively, the old hag is believed-at least by some-to be part of the root imagery that we use for nightmares. It’s further believed by some researchers that the hag image is both related to and influences modern beliefs about alien abduction. The two experiences are exceptionally similar, and may be describing the same experience for some people.

So who or what is she? The Old Hag is effectively an old woman that comes into a person’s room, wakes them up, prevents them from moving, and starts to smother them. There are variations to the legend; what is described is sometimes dependent on where you are in the world, as the hag is one of the most visible images but the story exists outside of Newfoundland. What is being described is essentially sleep paralysis-when your brain becomes awake prior to your body fully waking up.

Your body is designed to keep yourself from flailing in your sleep and hurting yourself and it’s possible to regain consciousness without coming out of that paralysis first. The two experiences are very similar-the sensation of waking up, finding someone in your room, and finding yourself unable to move or with a heavy weight on your chest. The presence of an entity in the room, or rather, the perception of such, may explain a number of folkloric or urban legend style reports ranging from interactions with faerie, ghosts, aliens, and shadow people.

There is a strong cultural aspect to the experience, even when the experience is kept within the realm of the supernatural. Even if we remove a physical explanation, the experience is dependent on where you are in the world. The hag exists on the Eastern Seaboard of the US in effectively the same form as in Newfoundland but she’s seen as a harbinger. In other areas the hag is the soul of the deceased, the angry dead, an animal sometimes described almost like a hell hound, demons, or witches.

During the summer of 2003, events in the northeastern United States involving a strange, humanlike creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed.

Primarily focused in rural New York state and once found in Idaho, self proclaimed witnesses told stories of their encounters with a creature of unknown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort, to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year.

In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning 4 continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I’ve been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some excerpts from their upcoming book.

A Suicide Note: 1964

“As I prepare to take my life, I feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain I have introduced through this act. It is not the fault of anyone other than him. For once I awoke and felt his presence. And once I awoke and saw his form. Once again I awoke and heard his voice, and looked into his eyes. I cannot sleep without fear of what I might next awake to experience. I cannot ever wake. Goodbye.”

Found in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to William and Rose, and one loose personal letter with no envelope:

“Dearest Linnie,

I have prayed for you. He spoke your name.”

A Journal Entry (translated from Spanish): 1880

“I have experience the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I see his eyes when I close mine. They are hollow. Black. They saw me and pierced me. His wet hand. I will not sleep. His voice (unintelligible text).”

A Mariner’s Log: 1691

“He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed I felt a sensation. He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again at the request of the Rake.”

From a Witness: 2006

“Three years ago, I had just returned from a trip from Niagara Falls with my family for the 4th of July. We were all very exhausted after a long day of driving, so my husband and I put the kids right to bed and called it a night.

At about 4am, I woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom. I used the moment to steal back the sheets, only to wake him in the process. I apologized and told him I though he got out of bed. When he turned to face me, he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knee almost knocked me out of the bed. He then grabbed me and said nothing.

After adjusting to the dark for a half second, I was able to see what caused the strange reaction. At the foot of the bed, sitting and facing away from us, there was what appeared to be a naked man, or a large hairless dog of some sort. Its body position was disturbing and unnatural, as if it had been hit by a car or something. For some reason, I was not instantly frightened by it, but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him.

My husband was peering over his arm and knee, tucked into the fetal position, occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature.

In a flurry of motion, the creature scrambled around the side of the bed, and then crawled quickly in a flailing sort of motion right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband’s face. The creature was completely silent for about 30 seconds (or probably closer to 5, it just seemed like a while) just looking at my husband. The creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway, leading to the kids’ rooms.I screamed and ran for the lightswitch, planning to stop him before he hurt my children. When I got to the hallway, the light from the bedroom was enough to see it crouching and hunched over about 20 feet away. He turned around and looked directly at me, covered in blood. I flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter Clara.

The creature ran down the stairs while my husband and I rushed to help our daughter. She was very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life. She said “he is the Rake”.

My husband drove his car into a lake that night, while rushing our daughter to the hospital. They did not survive.

Being a small town, news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first, and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However, the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either.

For several months, my son Justin and I stayed in a hotel near my parent’s house. After we decided to return home, I began looking for answers myself. I eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story. We got in contact and began talking about our experiences. He knew of two other people in New York who had seen the creature we now referred to as the Rake.

It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the Rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first 3 pages, and never mentioned it again. A ship’s log explained nothing of the encounter, saying only that they were told to leave by the Rake. That was the last entry in the log.

There were, however, many instances where the creature’s visit was one of a series of visits with the same person. Multiple people also mentioned being spoken to, my daughter included. This led us to wonder if the Rake had visited any of us before our last encounter.

I set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night, every night, for two weeks. I would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around in my bed each day when I woke up. By the end of the second week, I was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording at 8 times the normal speed. (This still took almost an hour every day)

On the first day of the third week, I thought I heard something different. What I found was a shrill voice. It was the Rake. I can’t listen to it long enough to even begin to transcribe it. I haven’t let anyone listen to it yet. All I know is that I’ve heard it before, and I now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband. I don’t remember hearing anything at the time, but for some reason, the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment.

The thoughts that must have gone through my daughter’s head make me very upset.

I have not seen the Rake since he ruined my life, but I know that he has been in my room while I slept. I know and fear that one night I’ll wake up to see him staring at me.”

This is an experience of my own:
Look pictures on google, searching for the keywords “The Rake” and look for both a drawn picture of a pale humanoid figure and a picture of a news report with the word “BERWICK” on the bottom of it. One morning, I woke up early for school. We live a city over away from my bus stop because I like the schools in the other city. Anyways, it was dark, and as we were driving on Highway 90 and we are baffled by the sight of seven police state troopers and four military trucks filled with marines, who were currently climbing out of the trucks and were filing into the woods. There were also big, portable spotlights shining on the woods, as if they were trying to find something. Each marine was equipped with what appeared to be an assault rifle of some sort, and they were in a rush. The police stopped us, asked us what our buisness in the area was, and told us to leave. We did as we were told, and a few days later, the “Monster of Berwick” appeared on the news. There was apparently a news “Blackout” the day it was discovered. Nobody knows the whereabouts of the rake, and I’m sure I don’t want to know. Some people even believe that the rake and slenderman, or Der Großmann, are somehow related.

Two 12-year-old girls who are accused of viciously stabbing a classmate 19 times have been identified for the first time publicly since telling police that they plotted for months to commit murder.

Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier face attempted murder charges after attacking their friend, saying that they did so because they wanted to join the cult of the 'Slender Man' after reading about him online.

The girls told investigators they believed the Slender Man was real and they wanted to prove it by slaughtering their friend after inviting her for a sleepover in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin.

The two suspects the knife back and forth between them before one girl held the victim down and the other stabbed her 19 times. It is not clear which one held the victim down and which had the knife.

One girl told detectives she regretted it and the other said she was sorry.

Geyser and Weier told police they read about the fictional character on a website known as Creepypasta Wiki, where scary stories are submitted by users.

One of the suspects is understood to have told police a user must kill someone in order to climb into the Slender Man's realm.

When the victim escaped in the midst of the assault, her assailants grabbed her and pulled her into the woods and told her to lay down and be quiet, hoping she would bleed out and die, according to court documents.

She eventually crawled out of the woods, covered in blood after being stabbed in the legs, arms and torso. A passing cyclist saw her and called police. The girl was taken to the hospital and is expected to live, despite being stabbed a dozen and a half times.

Surgeons say she was a 'millimeter from death' - one of the stab wounds nearly sliced open a major artery.

'It was weird that I didn't feel remorse,' one of the girls told detectives.

'The bad part of me wanted her to die, the good part of me wanted her to live,' the other girl said.

Both girls are charged as adults with attempted pre-meditated murder. If convicted, they face 65 years in prison and are being held on $500,000 bail each.

The criminal complaint spells out how the Geyser and Weier initially planned to put duct tape over their friend's mouth while she was sleeping and then stab her in the neck as she lay in bed, but then they thought that a bathroom would be a better scene for the crime because it would be easier to clean up after, according to CNN.

They opted against both of those theories, however, and chose to go for the attack during a game of hide and seek at a nearby park.

'As they left for the park ... (the victim) was walking in front of them and Geyser lifted up the left side of her white jacket and displayed the knife tucked in her waistband. Weier stated she gave Geyser a look with wide eyes and, when asked what that meant Weier stated, "I thought, dear god, this was really happening,"' the report states.

The girls were found walking near an interstate highway shortly after their victim was rescued. They had a backpack full of snacks and a five-inch knife.

They said they had planned to run away and join the Slender Man in his mansion in the woods outside of town. One girl even had a picture of her family with her. She said she packed it because she didn't want to forget what they looked like.

The Slender Man is a prevalent internet myth that has been a viral sensation since it emerged online in 2009. The paranormal creature stalks, abducts and traumatizes children for its own amusement. It can also supposedly control people and communicate telepathically.

The girls said they believed the 'Slender Man' was real after reading stories about him online on a site called CreepyPasta Wiki, where users can submit their own scary stories.

Every student at the middle school where the girls attend had recently been given iPads. Parents say officials promised to monitor the students' online activity, but never did.

'I recognize their young ages but it's still unbelievable,' Court Commissioner Thomas Pieper said during one of the girls' initial court appearances Monday.

Both girls appeared in court wearing shackles and jail jumpsuits. They were surrounded by sheriff's baliffs, who towered over them. Family members of one of the girls wept openly as reporters snapped photographs. The other girl's family sat stone-faced.

According to the criminal complaint, one of the girls told an investigator they began planning to kill their friend in December. The other girl told police they decided to kill her so they could become proxies of Slender Man, who would accept them and let them live with him in his mansion in the Nicolet National Forest.

The other girl said she sees Slender Man in her dreams. She said he watches her and can read her mind and teleport.

'It's extremely disturbing as a parent and as chief of police,' Waukesha Police Chief Russell Jack said at a news conference ahead of the court appearances Monday.

The girls invited their friend to a slumber party on Friday evening, the complaint said. They planned to kill her during the night so they wouldn't have to look into her eyes, one girl told police, and then run away.

They decided to put it off, but the next day, during a hide-and-seek game in a wooded park, they attacked their friend with a knife. One girl told the other to 'go ballistic, go crazy,' according to the complaint.

The victim began to scream that she hated them and started stumbling away, one of the girls told police.

The girls left the victim lying in the woods. She crawled to a road where a bicyclist found her lying on the sidewalk. Police arrived and she gave them the name of one of the girls who attacked her.

She was rushed into surgery, police said.

One of the girl's attorneys, Donna Kuchler, asked Pieper to remove reporters from the courtroom because she planned to attempt to get her client waived into juvenile court. Pieper refused. Kuchler escorted the girl's family out of the courtroom, telling reporters only that the family was horrified at what happened.

The other girl's attorney, Joseph Smith Jr., led her family out of court. He declined to comment.

Both girls are due back in court on June 11 for a status conference.