... chair paranormal investigation, and a Bunny Man without an Echo...

I joined Meet Up, a social media site that encourages people to actually (gasp) meet up and have various adventures. There is one group that I tried to join but my acceptance is pending. Hmph. It’s been almost a week and I honestly only wanted to join because this weekend there is a Mourning Ritual lecture which sounds awesome. They’re actually a paranormal investigation group and perhaps my answers to the Meet Up survey just didn’t pass. I mean, I *want to* believe but I don’t have the patience to hold some prongs or coat-hanger wires straight while being quiet for several hours waiting for a spirit to answer questions that I’ll have to play back on a computer. I’m not making fun! I just am not a sit-still/ patient kind of girl. Sigh. If I stayed in a haunted B&B, my fella would probably have to wake me up to tell me that a ghost came in. Actually a story for another day is that we did stay in a B&B with a haunted room that wasn’t shared with us until after my fella woke up screaming the name “Mary”. Talk about me giving him the stink eye in the morning… that was only until the B&B owner explained that the room was haunted by a woman named Mary. (Makes a fussy face… not buying it hmph).

There was also that time that my mom and I stayed in an old farm house that was converted into a dorm for students of a school for the Deaf in New England. We stayed there while I was looking for an apartment in the area. When I woke in the morning, my mom was sitting straight up in bed holding a broom. During the night she heard rattling keys and thought someone was trying to break in. When I asked why she didn’t wake me she explained that she knew I would open the door to confront the intruder (yeah, probably true… I’m snarky like that). Unfortunately, when we saw the school superintendent, he explained that it was probably Max, the resident ghost. The school mascot is actually the galloping ghosts so… I just somehow forgot to share this with my mom before she slept in a potentially haunted room. Oops. Sorry Mom!

But I love a good ghost story and an urban legend including the one that I stumbled into tonight. (Thank you interwebs!) The story is about the Virginia Bunny Man Ghost?!? What in the world! Apparently this is an urban legend in the northern part of the state, somewhere around Fairfax, VA. The story is about a man who dresses like a bunny and haunts residential neighborhoods usually only appearing in secluded locations. This has been going on for over 30 years. A figure decked out in a white bunny suit armed with an ax has been seen as far north as Maryland and as far south as Culpepper, Virginia. Yet, his main haunt has been the area surrounding a railroad overpass near Fairfax Station, Virginia known as "Bunny Man Bridge."

As the story goes,  the Bunny Man is said to be responsible for the deaths of two “disobedient” children in the Clifton area. There are rumors that other children have disappeared and that animals have been found horribly mutilated.

One written version of the tale entitled “The Clifton Bunny Man” by Timothy C. Forbes explains that in 1904 inmates from an insane asylum escaped while being transferred to a local prison. One of these escapees murdered a fellow escapee and eventually became the Bunny Man. Officials located the escapee and during their attempt to apprehend him at an overpass, he escaped right before being hit by an oncoming train. Part of the urban legend is that after the train passed police said that they heard laughter coming from the site. Apparently, the escapee was an inmate by the name of Grifon who had been institutionalized for killing his family and children on Easter Sunday.

For other interesting "monsters", I found the Roadtrippers.com graphic below. Happy Researching!