History vs. Myth

Is the Madden Curse real? Explore the infamous NFL superstition tied to Madden NFL cover stars, its shocking history, and the players who've defied or fallen victim to it.

By HowStuffWorks

Explore the most haunted places in the world, from eerie castles to abandoned asylums. Discover chilling stories, ghostly sightings, and mysterious legends.

By HowStuffWorks

Is Santeria witchcraft? Discover the origins, rituals, and cultural significance of Santeria, and why it's often misunderstood as witchcraft.

By HowStuffWorks

Ghost towns are abandoned settlements that once thrived, often due to economic or environmental changes.

By HowStuffWorks

His leafy face can be found in medieval cathedrals and on garden paving stones all over Europe, but what is the story of the Green Man?

By Jesslyn Shields

The numbers 666 are a favorite of horror movies dealing with the occult. But where did they come from, and what or whom do they really refer to?

By Dave Roos

In a bizarre experiment during the Cold War, the CIA used prostitutes and bordellos to lure customers only to drug them with LSD. It was all designed to achieve mind control.

By Patrick J. Kiger

James Dean died at the young age of 24 when he crashed his Porsche 550 Spyder. The car and its parts have been connected to many mysterious deaths ever since. Is it cursed?

By Cherise Threewitt

Decades after the publication of "The Amityville Horror," not to mention the movie and its countless spin-offs, we're still fascinated by the story of this haunted house - even though many people now think it was a hoax.

By Dave Roos

Bottle trees originated centuries ago in the Congo in West Africa and still hold a special spiritual place in the heart of the American landscape.

By Jesslyn Shields

Hekate was the ancient Greek goddess of magic, the moon, witchcraft, the night, necromancy and ghosts who stood at the crossroads between the worlds of the living and the dead.

By Robert Lamb

During World War II, 1,000 Japanese soldiers retreated from fighting with the British into Ramree Island, Burma, where most were eaten by crocodiles. Or so the story goes. But what really happened?

By Dave Roos

When the "killing stone," or "Sesshō seki," split March 5, 2022, on the plains of Mount Nasu in Japan, was the devious spirit Tamamo-no-Mae released into the world to wreak havoc?

By Tara Yarlagadda

Scientists once thought it was a land bridge between Asia and Africa. Occultists saw it as a place where gigantic humans lived who were once hermaphroditic and laid eggs. Yep, it's got a colorful story.

By Dave Roos

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Other times, it's just fiction. How much do you know about these horrible hoaxes?

By Alia Hoyt

Theseus was the mythical founder-hero of Athens and the slayer of the Poseidon-cursed man-bull known as the Minotaur. "Olympians" author George O'Connor reflects on Theseus, a difficult mythological hero to love.

By Robert Lamb

Brought to life on the screen by Alexander Skarsgård, the story of Amleth the Viking was the inspiration for Shakespeare's "Hamlet." But who was Prince Amleth and did he actually exist?

By Mark Mancini

She's been described as a chariot-riding queen of night and the mother of death, deceit and dreams. Who was this mist-shrouded figure that even the gods feared?

By Dave Roos

You think you'd never fall for a conman's (or conwoman's) shtick. But so did many of the victims of these five con artists. What scams did they manage to pull off?

By Dave Roos

Ken Webster moved into an 18th-century cottage in the tiny town of Dodleston, England, and soon found himself cyber-communicating with someone from the year 1546.

By Allison Troutner

The most famous story about her says she was so hideous that people who gazed at her would turn to stone. But Medusa was a victim of the Greek gods as well as a victimizer.

By Dave Roos

Tormented by an evil face at the back of his head, he took his own life at 23. It's a sad tale that has captivated people for generations, except it isn't true. What was the source of this hoax? And can the condition really exist?

By Dave Roos

Michael Rockefeller, the 23-year-old son of prominent political figure Nelson Rockefeller, went into the jungle of Netherlands New Guinea in 1961 and never returned. Here's the story.

By Allison Troutner & Yara Simón

One of the few female figures in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the Queen of Sheba is also the mother of the Ethiopian nation. While some experts question whether she ever existed, others think she might have been Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt.

By Dave Roos

A strange radio message sent a search party to find an eerily silent ship manned by a deceased crew, their faces contorted in fear. What happened aboard the Ourang Medan has been a mystery ever since and some folks wonder whether the ship ever existed at all.

By Allison Troutner