What stories have always stuck with you? Gave you endless nightmares for years? Made you wonder if they could, or just might really be true after all?

I'm here to debunk these legends! Find out what gave these excellent writers a good way to scare us. Truth or facts...

Let's begin...

Dracula

In May 1897, Bram Stoker created the well-known beast Dracula. A guy with fangs can't possibly be real right? One that flies off in the night in bat form...is clearly made up right? Um....I hate to break it to you but.....WRONG.

Good ol' Drac is based on a real person. A horrible demonic person. Those of you who are Ghost Adventures groupies know who I'm talking about. GAC Crew did a full Halloween special at his castle in Romania!! 

There is a castle in Romania known as 'Bran Castle'. It's over 2,500 square feet of land. Bram Stoker based his book of the evil empire who owned this castle.

Vlad Impaler was an evil, sick, twisted, real-life Drac! He was responsible for more than 80,000 deaths! He was the son of Dracula. That was his father's name! He enjoyed cruelty and watching others suffer from slow painful deaths...

The Headless Horseman

Everyone knows the legend of Ictchabod Crane. The story that was written about a teacher who came to a new town and was beheaded by an evil demon. The story came out back in the 1700's. True or false was this real?

Well, turns out true! There is a similar true story to this! The Hudson River Valley, where Tarrytown is located, has a large Dutch population and much of that 'old country' folklore finds its way into the stories of Washington Irving. In fact, there is a German legend of the Headless Horseman that has been said to influence the Dutch tales. In one tale, he's called "The Wild Huntsman" who chases people who have committed terrible crimes through the woods at breakneck speeds.

Frankenstein

No way a person would pull apart another person's body parts to create a monster right? Um...wrong....

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein! Back in the year 1818, the horrific novel came out. It was indeed based on a true story:

On January 17, 1803, George Foster sat in a grim cell of Newgate Prison, in London, awaiting execution. Having been arrested, indicted, and found guilty of murdering his wife and child, gallows had been erected, from which he would hang. January 17th dawned bitterly cold, much like that frigid morning when the bodies of the two Foster women had been found. Foster had argued his innocence: he had been traveling to visit his other children at the time of the deaths. True, he had wanted out of his marriage -  but not by killing his wife and his child. He had been relatively drunk that evening, but that didn't necessarily lead to murder. Those who spoke on his behalf agreed: he was a decent man, good in his soul but otherwise poor. He worked hard to care for his children and wife.

Despite those who spoke on his account, the juries were not convinced: George Foster would hang, and worse still, his body would be anatomized. Dissection had been added to the Murder Act of 1752 to inflict "further terror and a peculiar mark of infamy." So distasteful a procedure, it was believed that the mere notion of it would deter criminals from committing illegal acts. English laws only allotted a few bodies for dissections, so arguments erupted from the medical schools eager to perform experiments. These ordeals were not pretty: oftentimes the bodies were skinned, eviscerated, and cut to pieces, what remained either burned or disposed of like refuse.

Did I scare you? Good. My job is done! Remember when you tell your kids monsters are not real think about what I just told you...