Weird, obscure folklore of the United States

In the small town of Abbeville, Alabama, there is a legend that is passed down from generation to generation - the legend of Huggin' Molly. For mothers who want their children to hurry home before dark, Huggin' Molly is a helper. But for children, she is downright terrifying.

As the legend goes, Huggin' Molly is a phantom woman who only appears to children at night. She appears out of nowhere, standing at a towering height of up to 7 feet tall, wearing dark clothing and a wide-brimmed hat. She sneaks up behind children then squeezes them tightly before screaming in their ears. While she never harms the children, some claim to experience ringing in their ears after encountering her.

The devil man of Algiers

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon (also known as the "Anesthetic Prowler", the "Phantom Anesthetist", or simply the "Mad Gasser") was the name given to the person or people believed to be responsible for a series of apparent gas attacks that occurred in Mattoon, Illinois, during the mid-1940s. More than two dozen separate cases of gassings were reported to police over the span of two weeks, in addition to many more reported sightings of the suspected assailant. The gasser's supposed victims reported smelling strange odors in their homes which were soon followed by symptoms such as paralysis of the legs, coughing, nausea and vomiting. No one died or had serious medical consequences as a result of the gas attacks. Police remained skeptical of the accounts throughout the entire incident.[1] Many reported gassings had simple explanations, such as spilled nail polish or odors emanating from animals or local factories.[1] Victims made quick recoveries from their symptoms and suffered no long-term effects.[2] Nevertheless, local newspapers ran alarmist articles about the reported attacks and treated the accounts as fact.[1] The attacks are widely considered to be a case of mass hysteria.[1][2] However, others maintain that a Mad Gasser actually existed, or that the perceived attacks have another explanation, such as industrial pollution.

Ebenezer Chapel at the O'Dell Cemetery in Dayton, Oregon. I grew up in Portland and was obsessed with the supernatural as a teenager, so my friends and I would sometimes drive places out of town that were reputed to be haunted just for fun. This place is a quaint family pioneer cemetery on country backroads which has an elaborate folklore about a crazed polygamist preacher who allegedly butchered his family inside the cemetery chapel and burned his kids' bodies in the fireplace. None of it is true of course, and I have no idea how the story even began, but the story freaked the hell out of my teenage brain. The cemetery itself was quite pretty in retrospect. The chapel is still standing, and it does in fact have an old fireplace inside. I remember visiting it in the afternoon. I was way too chicken to try going there at night.

Another "vampire" in southern Oregon