Hi friends! Happy Friday. I feel like I've been lacking in the Freaky Friday Files department for a while and there's honestly SOOO many topics I could cover here, it's just so hard to choose. So for this edition of Freaky Friday Files I thought we could explore the urban legend that is the bunny man (and the bunny man bridge).
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The Bunny Man Urban Legend
According to Wikipedia, the bunny man is an urban legend that originated from two separate incidents in Fairfax County, Virginia in the 1970s. The legend has spread around Washington, DC & Maryland areas. As the urban legend has spread, the story slightly changes each time. However, most variations involve a man dressed in a bunny suit who attacks people with an axe. A LOT, if not all, the stories involve a specific overpass bridge known as Colchester Overpass in Clifton, Virginia (also known as "The Bunny Man Bridge"). For the purpose of this blog post, we will focus on the two incidents from Wikipedia (A historian has investigated these claims). Both incidents allegedly occurred in Burke, Virginia. 1) 19th October 1970: US Air Force Academy Cadet Robert Bennet & his fiancée were visiting relatives in Burke. They returned home from a football game around midnight, where they parked their car across the street from an uncle's house on Guinea Road (it's unclear which side the uncle was from). Before getting out of the car, the car was still running, the couple noticed something outside. Then, their front passenger window was smashed and the couple saw a man wearing a white suit standing near the broken window. He yelled at them about trespassing and the couple drove off. As they got further down the road, they discovered an axe on their car floor. The couple went to the police and when they gave a description, Robert said that the man was wearing a bunny suit with long white ears and his partner said that he was wearing a white pointed hat.
2) 29th October 1970: A construction security guard called Paul Phillips approached a man standing on the porch of an unfinished home on Guinea Road, in Kings Park West. The man looked to be about 20 years old and was wearing a white and grey bunny suit. He allegedly said to Paul, "You're trespassing. If you come any closer, I'll chop your head off" while chopping something on the porch with an axe.
Both incidents were investigated. However, they were closed due to lack of evidence. Following the incidents, more than 50 people have contacted authorities claiming that they have seen the bunny man.
There is also a theory that a bus of asylum prisoners were being transported to a new facility around 1904 and one person managed to escape said bus and when the authorities went looking for him, they found all these remains of rabbits. During Halloween, a bunch of teenagers were hanging around the bridge and then they have never been seen since - legend has it that the bunny man will appear at the bridge at midnight every Halloween. This theory has been debunked as no disappearance or murder of said teenagers ever occurred and there has been no reporting of said bunny man prior to 1970.
The bridge also wasn't built until 1906. Since 2003, the bridge has become a popular destination for paranormal enthusiasts - I'm assuming because the internet has led to the the bunny man legend being spread and changed even further than the original sightings. Authorities have to patrol the area a lot more than usual around Halloween due to its popularity.
Questions I have (from a sociological lens)
Was the bunny man real?
Was the bunny man a collective belief (similar to how people have collective beliefs about the Mandela effect)
Was the bunny man legend a thoughtform? Did the collective magically create the bunny man (kinda like a tulpa)?
Did someone just decide to make up a creepy-pasta urban legend and spread it around kinda like the porcelain doll stories?
Did the couple really see someone? Were they hallucinating? Why did they find an axe? Why did one person think it was a bunny suit?
Was there really just a random man who wanted to scare people in this area?
As I am a social scientist, I am going to have to go with Occam's Razor i.e., the simplest explanation is the most likely and that is that the bunny man never existed, it was a made-up urban legend that escalated and has spread around the world. However, I am unable to say whether or not the two reported incidents are true - they could have happened and it may just have been that the man was dressed up as a bunny because it was close to Halloween. Although a man in a bunny suit with an axe is giving major Donnie Darko vibes and I do not like that.
Have you ever been to the Bunny Man Bridge? Would you want to go here to investigate? Let me know in the comments below.
Stay safe,
Ash x
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Interesting story. No I would not want to go anywhere near that bridge. LOL. I know people do some strange things and there are so many sick people out there. I just want to stay safe.