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Columbia legends: true or false?
Michelle Peltier, Jarrad Henderson, Erin K. O’Neill and Lillian J. Kellyn
The old railroad bridge crossing Perche Creek near McBaine is rumored to be haunted by a man who hanged himself. The Kindred Moons Paranormal Society is one local group that investigates rumored otherworldly encounters.
August 19, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
The world has learned a lot from urban legends: Stay away from the man with the hook hand, and when you’re babysitting, don’t answer the phone. Columbia has a wealth of its own stories — both true and false. “Urban legends are always relevant to contemporary society, or they wouldn’t be passed down,” MU English professor LuAnne Roth says. “They speak to people’s most strongly held beliefs.” Roth even teaches a class on legends, proving they’re not going away anytime soon.
An escaped monkey once terrorized Columbia
More like kind of frightened Columbia, but this one’s true. In September 2007, a small rhesus macaque ditched its owner, went on the lam and bit a 7-year-old boy at Stephens Lake Park. While the suspect was smaller than most, the monkey business caused quite the ruckus. It even got national attention, including a mention on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert’s advice? “Lock your doors, and hide your bananas.”
Jefferson Junior High School is connected to Hickman High School by a tunnel.
Despite how exciting it would make recess, this one is just plain false. It’s true that both high schools were built over a series of tunnels, but they never connect to each other. In the old days, the pipes were used to bring steam to the buildings, but today, they’re used to pepper the schools’ administrators with questions. “I get asked about that a lot,” Hickman Assistant Principal Doug Mirts says about the myth. “I’ve been in those tunnels, and they’re not linked together in any way, shape or form.”
Columbia’s public water doesn’t bode well for your sperm count.
The jury’s still out on this. According to Columbia Water and Light spokesperson Connie Kacprowicz, about three years ago a report testing the sperm counts of different populations determined this area had a lower average count than others. “The researcher was trying to figure out why, and she linked it to several substances like pesticides used on lawns and very briefly mentioned that it could be in the water supply,” Kacprowicz says. However, she says, Columbia’s public water doesn’t include any of those elements. “They did the initial research, but there needs to be another round to make any sort of conclusion.” Kacprowicz says. Still, stick with condoms, just in case.
The Katy Trail is haunted by a man who hanged himself on the Perche Creek Bridge near McBaine.
Some say ghosts are not as uncommon in Columbia as you might hope. “I’d say that near 65 percent of the places we’ve investigated in this area have truly been haunted,” says Michael McDonald, head of Columbia’s Kindred Moons Paranormal Society. When McDonald and his team investigated the area in May on an episode of his paranormal reality show on Columbia Access Television, Kindred Moon Paranormal, they heard unnatural voices and got strong readings from their tracking equipment. “We began to see red and green lights, and we put a laser pointer down the trail near the bridge, and it reflected off of something back at us, but there was nothing there,” McDonald says. “We kept hearing a man’s voice screaming.”
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