Like the villain in the final reel of a slasher movie, the urban legends that surround Halloween refuse to die – in fact, social media seems to have given them a new lease of life.
Though they are often outlandish, some of the myths do have a grain of truth – making them all the more potent. Here are some you may have spotted.
Poisoned candy and toxic treats
Trick-or-treating must be confusing to young children. They spend all year being told not to speak to strangers, then suddenly they are taken around the neighbourhood and told to knock on random doors and accept gifts from, well, mostly strangers.
That contradiction has fuelled concerns, especially in the US, that the candy handed out to trick-or-treaters may contain poison.
There are few real-life incidents of strangers distributing poisoned candy to children. However, there was such a case in 1974, when eight-year-old Timothy O’Bryan, from Texas, died after eating Halloween candy laced with cyanide.
Police eventually discovered the culprit was the child’s father, who had poisoned his son in order to claim life insurance money. Ronald Clark O’Bryan, nicknamed the Candy Man, was executed for murder in 1984.
If it isn’t poison, it’s going to be sharp objects
Razor blades and needles hidden in trick-or-treat gifts are also a worry, again with little evidence that this is a widespread problem.
There have, however, been isolated cases in the past two decades. In 2000, 49-year-old James Joseph Smith, from Minneapolis, was charged with concealing needles in chocolate bars.
Similar incidents seem to have been motivated by a misunderstanding of how far a Halloween prank should go rather than malicious attempts to injure.
Of course, parents may have a vested interest in spreading such rumours. Insisting you have to inspect your child’s sweetie haul to remove any suspicious confectionery is clearly an excellent way of extracting the best ones for yourself.
If it isn’t poison or sharp objects, it must be drugs
The idea that candy may contain marijuana also crops up frequently. But quite why anybody would want to give away their stash for free remains unclear.
There are a couple of incidents that could have sparked this myth. In San Francisco, a post-office worker who handed out unclaimed chocolate bars was seemingly unaware the sweet treats had been part of an attempt to smuggle drugs.
In another case, in 1970, a five-year old appeared to have died after eating Halloween candy laced with heroin. However, investigators discovered the drug had been added to the sweets in an attempt to cover up the fact that the child had accidentally ingested heroin found elsewhere in the house.
There’s a modern twist on this tale: at least one US state agency this year has warned about cannabidiol candy, which is sold in so-called smoke shops. Reports say the sweets are not meant to include THC, the active marijuana ingredient, but when tested they sometimes do.
Parents: Check #Halloween candy for #marijuana infused candy. pic.twitter.com/i2RpF3Ovo9
— NJ Attorney General (@NewJerseyAG) October 24, 2017
The New Jersey attorney general’s office has recently issued a similar warning on social media.
And in 2014, police in Denver launched a Facebook campaign challenging parents to identify sweets containing edible marijuana.
If the drugs aren’t in the candy, they will be in the tattoos
Yes, a fear that strangers will give children Halloween-themed temporary tattoos containing LSD actually exists. A letter to the New York Times from 1988 debunks the story, but it still won’t go away. But given how excited children get when they go trick-or-treating, how could anyone tell the difference?
That decoration is actually a dead body
Several real-life incidents have fuelled stories about a corpse being undiscovered for days because it was mistaken for a Halloween decoration.
In 1990, two deaths in the US were ascribed to hanging stunts for Halloween going wrong, with at least two similar deaths reported since then.
But the urban legend owes its origins to an incident in Delaware in 2005, when a hanged woman was left in a tree for several hours because people assumed it was a Halloween prop; and another case in California in 2009, when a corpse lay on a porch for two weeks because neighbours assumed it was a particularly spooky Halloween decoration.
There’s going to be a massacre
A recurring Halloween myth is the threat of a massacre. The format is usually that a TV psychic has predicted a series of killings but the details are vague, with messages saying, for example, that the targeted school will begin with the letter M or N. The rumour usually provides just enough specificity to make the warning apply to a large section of the population.
One such rumour can be traced to 2001, when there were false reports that an Afghan man had written to his American former girlfriend in early September to warn her not to fly on the 11th of that month and to avoid shopping centres on 31 October.
Stories of supposed historic massacres have been turned into memes, making them easier to spread and appear more authoritative, despite the fact there isn’t a shred of evidence to back them up.
Sharing creepy stories and urban legends on social media is perhaps a modern take on the age-old practice of telling unattributable ghost stories around a campfire or at bedtime.
If there is a massacre, killer clowns may be responsible
It’s been a tough couple of years for clowns, what with Pennywise being the face of a popular monster film based on Stephen King’s It, which followed an epidemic of sightings of silent creepy clowns.
Last year, reports of a clown leaving a threatening note outside a school on a now-defunct satirical website set that particular internet rumour-mill in motion. However, anyone suffering from coulrophobia – an irrational fear of clowns – will be reassured to know that while the media often refer to these pranksters as “killer clowns”, no deaths have been attributed to them.
… Or gangs
There are variations on the narrative, but from the late 2000s a spate of chain emails and text messages warned that various gangs were planning to carry out a ritual initiation ceremony on Halloween targeting a specific number of women or white people, usually between 31 and 34.
More recently, the rumours tend to centre on supposed gangs of African-American men targeting white people. This year, the myth involves a US Antifa uprising on 4 November.
Pets are going to be targeted
Not just white people, but pets are also predicted to be preyed upon on Halloween – or so the myth goes. This tall tale usually claims black cats will be sacrificed in various witchcraft ceremonies.
More bizarrely, in recent years there has also been a rumour that 31 October has been named “National Kill a Pit Bull Day”. This hoax seems to have originated as a protest against a specific piece of legislation in Slater, Missouri, in 2012.
McDonald’s is giving away Ouija boards
This particular favourite from 2014, supported by a photoshopped mock-up, swept the internet. Rumour had it that McDonald’s was giving away children’s Happy Meals that contained a toy Ouija board alongside the usual burgers and McNuggets.
This would be the only reason I'd ever get a McDonalds @HeyCloverHey #ouijaboard pic.twitter.com/lQbbSAhLVj
— Holly ホリー (@IloveJAPAN1234) October 26, 2014
Most of these urban legends are as convincing as this...
Halloween falls on Friday the 13th this Year? It's been '666' Years since that has Happened...... pic.twitter.com/lBuu7zfjrD
— Stan (@HitmanStan) August 22, 2016
Did you spot what’s wrong with this meme?
