10 Australian Urban Legends That'll Creep You The Hell Out!

Here we are looking at 10 of the darkest and creepiest stories from down under.Australian folklore states that the drop bear is a predator and marsupial with an orange fur and powerful forearms. They can grow o the size of a leopard and tear their prey into pieces.Located in Melbourne, Crown Casino is the larges casino in Australia. According to the legend, the casino covers a huge suicide epidemic and having its own morgue in the basement. If rumours are to be believed, this cold and nefarious solution is all about maximising profits and avoiding bad PR. There’s even a related theory that Melbourne’s iconic river, the Yarra, got its distinctive brown colouring after years of being used as a corpse dumping ground.Many locals believe that the final resting place of the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper was actually in Australia. The theory goes that Jack the Ripper’s secret identity was an Englishman named Frederick Bailey Deeming. Frederick fled Britain in July of 1891 after slaughtering his wife and children and leaving them buried under his floorboards.Upon his arrival in Australia, Frederick claimed his next victim: a local woman, who he disposed of in Melbourne before disappearing into the Australian wilderness. Frederick was eventually caught and hanged, but the brutality of his crimes led many to believe that he and Jack the Ripper were one and the same.The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the most popular structures in the world.It is known that the building of the bridge took eight years and had caused deahs of sixteen iron workers. These deaths are officially recorded in the history books, but some say that another three workers lost their lives. But these deaths were mysteriously hushed.The story goes that three unlucky contractors fell into the huge pylons during construction. Retrieving the bodies was deemed too difficult and costly, given they were under enormous pressure to complete the project. Rather than delay production they decided to leave the bodies entombed within the pylons, where they allegedly remain today.These construction workers were drifters with no permanent roots in the area, which is how their disappearances were able to go unnoticed. If this urban myth is true, Sydney’s bold national icon is actually a giant burial site.A man named Dr Schneider became unhinged following the tragic death of his wife and child sometime in the twentieth century according to this legend.In a fit of madness, Schneider began taking his patients to a small cabin in the forest outside his mansion and there he performed insane surgical experiments on them without anaesthesia. Schneider is believed to have murdered dozens of victims.According to rumours, Perth is home to a thriving community of devil worshippers. These Satanists come together at Kings Park in the dead of night to perform dark rituals.They draw misterious symbols, burn figures and have wild orgies on the grassy slopes. Then, one time at a year, the satanic coven worshippers performs a human sacrifice. According to conspirators, the group does this by hunting down and murdering the local homeless as a means to sustain their power.According to conspiracy theorists, the suburbs of Sydney are being stalked by packs of big cats!That’s right: authorities have received many questionable reports of puma and cougar sightings. These huge silent predators are said to skulk around the western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, surviving on possums and the occasional human.Of course, these creatures are definitely not native to Australia, which might explain the lack of concrete evidence. It’s more likely that some poor, imaginative – and possibly intoxicated – person simply mistook a black shadow for a crouching tiger on their late-night walk home. It’s not hard to imagine somebody working themselves into a frenzy of terror and calling the police.In 1940, tragedy striked in Canberra when a Lockheed Hudson II bomber plane spiralled out of control and crashed into the woods. The incident was dubbed the ‘Canberra Air Disaster’ and went down as one of the most tragic events in local history.A few years later, reports began flooding in from Canberra residents having strange encounters in the woods. Many people claimed they saw unearthly lights near the old crash site. Others reported hearing the distant drone of an airplane, followed by a deafening bang.Then there was the chilling account of a teenage girl who emerged from the forest one night in a fit of terror. She claimed she had been pursued by the long-dead airman, whose spectral body was still shrouded in flames.Another dark secret. This time, a hidden underground network of unused train platforms, tunnels and tracks. These were completed in the 1920s but were never made operational, and this has led to some wild and downright creepy rumours and speculation. One uncomfortable theory suggests the underground level was built by marauding First Settlers to aid them in their kidnapping schemes.The Bunyip or Yowie is an Aboriginal legend and a kind of Australian Big Foot. This mythical creature allegedly dwells in swamps, creeks, waterholes and other murky waters. It’s said to emerge late at night where it emits blood-curdling screams. Bunyips have no absolute form, and are variously described as evil spirits, towering gorilla-like creatures, and even half human and half elephant monstrosities. They have insatiable appetites and, according to legend, do not discriminate between animals and people when it comes to finding a meal.