Spain’s most terrifying urban legends
All countries have urban legends and Spain is no exception: these legends can be anything from funny to just plain scary. We’ve selected some of the most curious to share with you. Are they true? Not true? Make yourself comfortable in the safest place in your house and join us for the tale of...
- The girl on the curve (La chica de la curva, perhaps Spain’s most famous ghost story). A driver picks up a young woman who’s hitchhiking late at night on a dark highway. The girl warns the driver to be careful going around the next curve, as it’s especially dangerous. The driver asks her how she knows this, to which she explains that she was killed on the curve. During her chilling response, the mysterious hitchhiker slowly vanishes into thin air. They say that the legend originated in Illinois and later ended up reaching Spain in a time long before the internet existed.
- Verónica Jaja: this is the Spanish version of the legend of “Bloody Mary”. According to this legend, if you close yourself in a dark room and repeat the name “Verónica Jaja” three times in front of a mirror, Miss Jaja herself will appear and promptly take your life. Although we’re pretty skeptical about this superstition, we couldn’t find anyone in the office who had taken or was willing to take the horrifying challenge.
- Crocodiles in the sewer: creepy stories have circulated in many Spanish cities about small crocodiles that were tossed into sewers. The story goes that the little crocs went on to prosper by following a healthy diet of sewage maintenance employees. Curiously, there have been documented findings of: an alligator in the Extremadura reservoir (escaped from a circus), a piranha in a pond in a Madrid park (let loose there by an irresponsible aquarium owner), and a pig in Madrid’s sewer system (he entered from a creek through a drainage pipe).
- Devil worshipping cleaning products: a rumor emerged not long ago that a well-known cleaning products manufacturer wasn’t using its profits for its publicized support of forest conservation, but instead to finance satanic cults. A rumor started by cleaner competition? Or maybe by an enraged client whose laundry didn’t come out as white as the ads promised? We’ll never know.
- Los troncos de Brasil: The tronco de Brasil was once popular in Spain as a decorative plant. An urban legend spread however that told of a woman who noticed one day that her Brazilian trunk was moving. The baffled woman called a specialist who asserted that the plant’s interior likely contained thousands of baby spiders from the Amazon. These little spiders would go on to grow to the size of a fist. The tronco de Brasil plant is of course “safe”, but its popularity suffered after the legend spread.
- Rocafort subway station (Barcelona): they say that this station is haunted, that it’s the station with the most suicides and that its cameras have registered strange movements after the train’s operating hours. Do the people who’ve helped spread the rumor know that long after the subway closes for the night, security and cleaning staff continue moving around the station?
- Madrid’s subway rat: some say they’ve seen a rat in the subway lines of Spain’s capital that always chases the last train of the day. They say that this is the reincarnation of a passenger who fell on the tracks waiting for the same train. Clearly not a fun way to spend eternity.
- The ghost of the nun of the University of Castile-La Mancha: the office of the president of this university located in Ciudad Real was once a shelter run by nuns. Some people say they’ve seen strange figures walking through the building’s hallways. It seems that doors also inexplicably open and close by themselves, although this could just be caused by natural factors in the windy region of La Mancha.
Of course there are many more ghostly urban legends floating around out there. Now it’s time for you to get out and discover some on your own... you’ll find strange stories that range from scary to funny!