My informant a twenty-two year old native of Massachusetts revealed that in her family, there is a known monster called the Cigar Man. He is quite similar to the Boogeyman and was created when the youngest grandchild of the family, who is now eight, refused to believe in the Boogeyman. This was much more believable because there are people who actual smoke cigars and the children were more willing to believe in the cigar man. He was concocted to in order to scare children into behaving.
Category Archives: Legends
Moukoukwe
The twenty-two year old female informant born in the Gabonese Republic, a state located on the west coast of Central Africa, revealed where she is from there is a creature called the Moukoukwe is “really tall beast… like a spirit” of the forest “that dances” it is rarely seen because it lives in the forest. It does appear at special occasions. Men dance around the mask wearing beast in his honor and occasionally the beast will chase after a person.
The Lying College Applicant
“There was once a high school senior applying to college. In his application essays, he wrote about the struggles he faced after his mother passed away from cancer. The only problem was that his mother was in fact alive. This eventually came back to haunt him when an admissions counselor, moved by the application essay, called the student’s home, only for the mother to pick up the phone.”
This myth was spread around widely during high school, especially among students who were currently applying to colleges. It essentially plays on the accepted truth that colleges look for students who have faced legitimate “struggles”, like illness, death of a family member, etc. To many of the students applying to colleges, that idea is terrifying because they have lived relatively safe, quiet lives. There exists an entire college counselor industry is based around shaping an applicant’s life into a story, complete with accomplishments, life goals and ambitions. An easy way to create a story is to create a conflict that the applicant had to struggle against on the way to success. While many students may embellish to give more significance to a struggle they faced to create a better story, the idea of completely making one up is both funny and somewhat tantalizing to a college applicant.
The legend takes the concept of creating a story for applications one step further, and has a student directly lie about struggles they’ve faced in the past, only to have it eventually ruin their chances when they are discovered. It’s also partially a morality tale, warning against lying to get ahead, but also allows stressed college applicants to partially indulge in the fantasy of creating a “story” for applications.
Tufts Syndrome
“It’s to explain when you get rejected from a college that was supposed tob e a safety. It’s named after the university, who supposedly would reject kids who were overqualified and probably wouldn’t have gone to Tufts anyway. Not the Tufts Syndrome is just used as an excuse for students who didn’t get in to a place they expected to.”
This is another college application belief, but one that has a good degree of believability — and, indeed, many do believe it. It makes logical sense that a college will reject someone if they are overqualified and more likely to go to another college, because it will negatively impact their yield. While there doesn’t exist much proof that any colleges and universities, let alone Tufts, rejects the top applicants to protect their yield, many high school seniors (and their parents), according to the informant, cling to this belief because it helps to soothe the pain of rejection. It is used so often in that case that it has begun to be seen as an excuse, rather than an actual legitimate reason for not being admitted to the college of one’s choice.
Gravity Hill
“In Chino Hills, there’s a ghost story sort of thing, um, where, uh, we have a lot of hills in Chino Hills and there’s one hill that, um, it’s almost as if it’s like two hills in a row. So there’s like a ‘U’ between the two hills. Um, and there used to be a road that goes up and over them, um, and you kind of go down and then back up, um, and supposedly there was a car accident, um, I don’t even know how long ago, um, where, like, 3 or 4 children ended up dying in the car accident in-between these two hills. Um, and supposedly, now there’s no longer a road, um, but if there– supposedly if you go in-between with your car and you kind of go down into where the ‘U’ is at the bottom and you set it up so that your car is in neutral, kind of facing upward toward the second hill, um, so that you’re– as if you’re going to go up the second hill, um, and then you put it in neutral and kind of go up slightly, um, supposedly you’re going to go back down… Supposedly the kids’ ghosts, the children’s ghosts, come and push your car back the opposite direction so you go back up the hill backwards, um, and so tons of, like, teenagers try to do this with their cars all the time um and supposedly, I’ve actually had a couple friends that told me it works, um, and everyone flips out, um, because everyone thinks these children’s ghosts come and, like, push your car, um, but in actuality it’s probably just gravity.” Laughs
My informant is a former resident of Chino Hills, California. This is a popular legend spread amongst the youth in the area and my informant first heard it from friends her age when she was a young teenager. My informant doesn’t have much patience for ghost stories, but enjoyed sharing the tale anyway. This is a legend that seems to have been around for awhile in the area as the father of another informant I spoke to remembers this story from when he was a teen. This secondary informant refers to the site mentioned in the legend as ‘Gravity Hill’ and adds a new detail: supposedly, when the ghost children are pushing the car up the hill, handprints can be seen on the windshield.
The Gravity Hill story is not unique to Chino Hills. Reportedly, there are several haunted hills throughout Southern California and, likely, the rest of the country. It’s an urban legend that is adapted for whatever area in which the story is told.