What is legend tripping? There's a good chance you've already done it. Remember sneaking off into that cemetery at night as a kid to see if there were any ghosts? What about hearing there was a monster lurking in that old abandoned building and wanting to check it out? Or reading about a UFO landing site and wanting to plan your next vacation in the area so you could stand where the craft was said to have left its mark? That's legend tripping. But it's also so much more. Any television program you've ever seen that explores haunted places, ancient mysteries, UFO sightings, or strange creatures is legend tripping. First there was a story: a legend that was born and grew because people had unexplained experiences and shared what they saw, heard, and felt. In Picture Yourself Legend Tripping: Your Complete Guide to Finding UFOs, Monsters, Ghosts, and Urban Legends in Your Own Backyard, you'll learn how to find, explore, and document these amazing, and often paranormal, occurrences. And you don't need expensive equipment or training, because this book will show you how to have an incredible adventure in your own backyard this weekend. Bring your open mind and your sense of wonder. Get ready for legend tripping!

Legend Tripping: A Contemporary Legend Casebook explores the practice of legend tripping, wherein individuals or groups travel to a site where a legend is thought to have taken place. Legend tripping is a common informal practice depicted in epics, stories, novels, and film throughout both contemporary and historical vernacular culture. In this collection, contributors show how legend trips can express humanity’s interest in the frontier between life and death and the fascination with the possibility of personal contact with the supernatural or spiritual. The volume presents both insightful research and useful pedagogy, making this an invaluable resource in the classroom. Selected major articles on legend tripping, with introductory sections written by the editors, are followed by discussion questions and projects designed to inspire readers to engage critically with legend traditions and customs of legend tripping and to explore possible meanings and symbolics at work. Suggested projects incorporate digital technology as it appears both in legends and in modes of legend tripping. Legend Tripping is appropriate for students, general readers, and folklorists alike. It is the first volume in the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research series, a set of casebooks providing thorough and up-to-date studies that showcase a variety of scholarly approaches to contemporary legends, along with variants of legend texts, discussion questions, and projects for students. Contributors: S. Elizabeth Bird, Bill Ellis, Carl Lindahl, Patricia M. Meley, Tim Prizer

Tonight, across America, countless people will embark on an adventure. They will prowl among overgrown headstones in forgotten graveyards, stalk through darkened woods and wildlands, and creep down the crumbling corridors of abandoned buildings. They have set forth in search of a profound paranormal experience and may seem to achieve just that. They are part of the growing cultural phenomenon called legend tripping. In If You Should Go at Midnight: Legends and Legend Tripping in America, author Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl guides readers through an exploration of legend tripping, drawing on years of scholarship, documentary accounts, and his own extensive fieldwork. Poring over old reports and legends, sleeping in haunted inns, and trekking through wilderness full of cannibal mutants and strange beasts, Debies-Carl provides an in-depth analysis of this practice that has long fascinated scholars yet remains a mystery to many observers. Debies-Carl argues that legend trips are important social practices. Unlike traditional rites of passage, they reflect the modern world, revealing both its problems and its virtues. In society as well as in legend tripping, there is ambiguity, conflict, crisis of meaning, and the substitution of debate for social consensus. Conversely, both emphasize individual agency and values, even in spiritual matters. While people still need meaningful and transformative experiences, authoritative, traditional institutions are less capable of providing them. Instead, legend trippers voluntarily search for individually meaningful experiences and actively participate in shaping and interpreting those experiences for themselves.

This fascinating book uncovers the history behind urban legends and explains how the contemporary iterations of familiar fictional tales provide a window into the modern concerns—and digital advancements—of our society. What do ghost hunting, legend tripping, and legendary monsters have in common with email hoaxes, chain letters, and horror movies? In this follow-up to Libraries Unlimited's Tales, Rumors, and Gossip: Exploring Contemporary Folk Literature in Grades 7–12, author Gail de Vos revisits popular urban legends, and examines the impact of media—online, social, and broadcast—on their current iterations. What Happens Next? Contemporary Urban Legends and Popular Culture traces the evolution of contemporary legends from the tradition of oral storytelling to the sharing of stories on the Internet and TV. The author examines if the popularity of contemporary legends in the media has changed the form, role, and integrity of familiar legends. In addition to revisiting some of the legends highlighted in her first book, de Vos shares new tales in circulation which she sees as a direct result of technological advancements.

A fascinating survey of the entire history of tall tales, folklore, and mythology in the United States from earliest times to the present, including stories and myths from the modern era that have become an essential part of contemporary popular culture. Folklore has been a part of American culture for as long as humans have inhabited North America, and increasingly formed an intrinsic part of American culture as diverse peoples from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania arrived. In modern times, folklore and tall tales experienced a rejuvenation with the emergence of urban legends and the growing popularity of science fiction and conspiracy theories, with mass media such as comic books, television, and films contributing to the retelling of old myths. This multi-volume encyclopedia will teach readers the central myths and legends that have formed American culture since its earliest years of settlement. Its entries provide a fascinating glimpse into the collective American imagination over the past 400 years through the stories that have shaped it. Organized alphabetically, the coverage includes Native American creation myths, "tall tales" like George Washington chopping down his father's cherry tree and the adventures of "King of the Wild Frontier" Davy Crockett, through to today's "urban myths." Each entry explains the myth or legend and its importance and provides detailed information about the people and events involved. Each entry also includes a short bibliography that will direct students or interested general readers toward other sources for further investigation. Special attention is paid to African American folklore, Asian American folklore, and the folklore of other traditions that are often overlooked or marginalized in other studies of the topic.

The New, Comprehensive Guide to Everything About Real Life Ghost Hunting Search no further for the complete, up-to-date, and smart guide for the aspiring ghost hunter—you! Packed with insider knowledge, this handbook covers everything about becoming a real paranormal investigator. This essential manual provides a detailed breakdown of every step on your ghost hunting journey. Explore the fascinating work of seminal figures in the history of paranormal investigation. Learn how to build a cohesive team and choose your first supernatural case. Discover crucial advice on the latest ghost hunter gadgets, the ethical way to report your evidence, and how to stay safe in your ghostly encounters. Unlike other ghost hunting books, this indispensable guide explains how to conduct historical research on your case, how to properly document your discoveries, and how popular media and ghost hunting TV shows have impacted the modern paranormal community. So You Want to Hunt Ghosts is your key to successful investigative adventures.

A Haunted Past Can an object really be haunted? The answer is a resounding YES. Discover for yourself in this eerie, spine-chilling, and alarming collection of true tales and classic stories of possessed possessions. Unearthed by veteran ghost hunters Christopher Balzano and Tim Weisberg, each page of Haunted Objects reveals unsettling accounts of unexplained paranormal activity surrounding everyday items. From dolls to rings, these innocent looking items have disturbing tales to tell. You'll never look at chairs, dresses, paintings, and the common items in your home the same way again.