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{{Short description|Urban legend}}
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[[Image:bunnyman bridge.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The "Bunny Man Bridge" in daylight]]
{{About||the horror film|Bunnyman (film)}}
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[[Image:bunnyman bridge night.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The "Bunny Man Bridge" at night]]
{{refimprove|date=July 2013}}
{{coord|38.78985|N|77.36225|W|scale:4000|display=title}}
[[File:Bunnyman Hatchet.JPG|thumb|Actual hatchet used by the "Bunny Man" in 1970.]]
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[[File:bunnyman bridge.jpg|thumb|right|The "Bunny Man Bridge" in daylight]]
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[[File:bunnyman bridge night.jpg|thumb|right|The "Bunny Man Bridge" at night]]


The '''Bunny Man''' is an [[urban legend]] that probably originated from two incidents in [[Fairfax County, Virginia]] in 1970, but has been spread throughout the [[Washington, D.C.|Washington D.C. area]]. There are many variations to the legend, but most involve a man wearing a rabbit costume ("bunny suit") who attacks people with an axe. Many variations occur around "Bunny Man Bridge", the concrete tunnel of a [[Southern Railway (US)|Southern Railway]] overpass on [[Colchester, Virginia|Colchester]] Road in [[Clifton, Virginia|Clifton]].<ref>{{coord|38|47|23|N|77|21|44|W|type:landmark}}</ref> Story variations include the origin of the Bunny Man, names, motives, weapons, victims, description of the bunny suit, and the possible death of the Bunny Man. In some accounts the Bunny Man's ghost or aging spectre is said to come out his place of death each year on [[Halloween]] to commemorate his untimely demise. In some accounts, victims' bodies are mutilated.
The '''Bunny Man''' is an [[urban legend]] that originated from two incidents in [[Fairfax County, Virginia]], in 1970, but has been spread throughout the [[Washington, D.C.]], and [[Maryland]] areas. The legend has many variations; most involve a man wearing a rabbit costume who attacks people with an [[axe]] or [[hatchet]].


Most of the stories occur around Colchester Overpass, a [[Southern Railway (US)|Southern Railway]] overpass spanning Colchester Road near [[Clifton, Virginia]],<ref>{{coord|38|47|23|N|77|21|44|W|type:landmark}}</ref> sometimes referred to as "Bunny Man Bridge".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/with-legend-of-the-bunnyman-a-local-band-celebrates-a-quirky-urban-myth/2014/06/02/0252e9e6-ea65-11e3-93d2-edd4be1f5d9e_story.html|title=A tale about a tail: Northern Virginia band explores the bloody Bunny Man myth in a new rock opera|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=2017-01-23}}</ref>
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==Origin==
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[[Fairfax County Public Library]] Historian-Archivist, Brian A. Conley, has conducted extensive research on the Bunny Man legend. He has only located two incidents of a man in a rabbit costume threatening people with an axe. The vandalism reports occurred a week apart in 1970 in [[Burke, Virginia]].
⚫
The first incident was reported the evening of October 20, 1970 by [[United States Air Force Academy|USAFA]] Cadet Bob Bennett and his fiancée, Dusty, who were visiting relatives on Guinea Road in Burke. Around midnight, while returning from a football game, they parked their car in a field on Guinea Road to talk. As they sat in the front seat with the car running, they noticed something moving outside the rear window. Moments later the front passenger window was smashed and there was a white-clad figure standing near the broken window. Bennett turned the car around while the man screamed at them about trespassing, including "You're on private property and I have your tag number." As they drove down the road they discovered a hatchet on the car floor.
⚫
When the police asked for a description of the man, Bob insisted he was wearing a white suit with long bunny ears, but Dusty remembered something white and pointed like a Ku Klux Klan outfit. They both remembered seeing his face clearly, but in the darkness they could not determine his race. The police returned the hatchet to Bennett after examination. Bennett was required to report the incident upon his return to the USAFA.
⚫
The second reported sighting occurred the evening of October 29, 1970, when construction security guard Paul Phillips approached a man standing on the porch of an unfinished home in Kings Park West on Guinea Road. Phillips said the man was wearing a gray, black and white bunny suit and was around 20 years old, {{convert|5|ft|8|in|m}} and weighing about {{convert|175|lb|kg}}. The man began chopping at a porch post with a long handled axe saying "All you people trespass around here. If you don't get out of here, I'm going to bust you on the head." The man then ran into the woods.
⚫
Both incidents were investigated by [[Fairfax County Police Department|Fairfax County Police]]. The investigations were eventually closed for lack of evidence. In the weeks following the incidents, over 50 people contacted the police to report sighting the "bunny man". Several newspapers reported the incidents, including the following articles in ''[[The Washington Post]]'':
*"Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax" (0ctober 22
, 1970)
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*"The 'Rabbit' Reappears" (October 31, 1970)
⚫
*"Bunny Man Seen" (November 4, 1970)
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*"Bunny Reports Are Multiplying" (November 6, 1970)
In 1973, [[University of Maryland, College Park|University of Maryland]] student Patricia Johnson submitted a research paper that chronicled more than four dozen variations on those two events.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}


Versions of the legend vary in the Bunny Man's name, motives, weapons, victims, description of the bunny costume or lack thereof, and sometimes even his possible death. In some accounts, victims' bodies are mutilated, and in some variations, the Bunny Man's ghost or aging spectre is said to come out of his place of death each year on Halloween to commemorate his death.
==The legend==


⚫
==Origin==
The legend has circulated for years in several forms. A version naming a suspect and specific location was posted to a web site in the late 1990s by a "Timothy C. Forbes". This version states that in 1904, an [[insane asylum|asylum]] [[prison]] in [[Clifton, Virginia]] was shut down by successful petition of the growing population of residents in Fairfax County. During the transfer of inmates to a new facility, the transport carrying the inmates crashes; some prisoners escaped or were found dead. A search party finds all but one of them.
{{refimprove section|date=December 2023}}
⚫
[[Fairfax County Public Library]] Historian-Archivist Brian A. Conley extensively researched the Bunny Man legend. He has located two incidents of a man in a rabbit costume threatening people with an axe. The vandalism reports occurred ten days apart in 1970 in [[Burke, Virginia]].
⚫
The first incident was reported on the evening of October 19, 1970, by [[United States Air Force Academy|U.S. Air Force Academy]] Cadet Robert Bennett and his fiancée, who were visiting relatives on Guinea Road in Burke. Around midnight, while returning from a football game, they reportedly parked their car in a field on Guinea Road to "visit an Uncle who lived across the street from where the car was parked". As they sat in the front seat with the motor running, they noticed something moving outside the rear window. Moments later, the front passenger window was smashed, and there was a white-clad figure standing near the broken window. Bennett turned the car around while the man screamed at them about trespassing, saying: "You're on private property, and I have your tag number." As they drove down the road, the couple discovered a hatchet on the car floor.


⚫
When the police requested a description of the man, Bennett insisted he was wearing a white suit with long bunny ears. However, Bennett's fiancée contested their assailant did not have bunny ears on his head, but was wearing a white [[capirote]] of some sort. They both remembered seeing his face clearly, but in the darkness, they could not determine his race. The police returned the hatchet to Bennett after examination.
During this time, locals allegedly begin to find hundreds of cleanly skinned, half-eaten carcasses of [[rabbit]]s hanging from the trees in the surrounding areas. Another search of the area is ordered and they locate the remains of Marcus Wallster, left in a similar fashion to the rabbit carcasses hanging in a nearby tree or under a bridge overpass—known locally as the "Bunny Man Bridge"—along the railroad tracks at Colchester Road. Officials name the last missing inmate, Douglas J. Grifon also known as Antonella Saavedra, as their suspect and call him "the bunny man".


⚫
The second reported sighting occurred on the evening of October 29, 1970, when construction security guard Paul Phillips approached a man standing on the porch of an unfinished home, in Kings Park West on Guinea Road. Phillips said the man was wearing a gray, black, and white bunny costume, and was about 20 years old, {{convert|5|ft|8|in|m}} tall, and weighed about {{convert|175|lb|kg}}. The man began chopping at a porch post with a long-handled axe, saying: "You're trespassing. If you come any closer, I'll chop off your head."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/32013729/the_minneapolis_star/|title=Antics of 'Bunny Man' Start Police Hopping|publisher=The Minneapolis Star|date=October 31, 1970|page=31|access-date=13 August 2018|via=newspapers.com}}</ref>
In this version, officials finally manage to locate Grifon but, during their attempt to apprehend him at the overpass, he nearly escapes before being hit by an oncoming train where the original transport crashed. They say after the train passed the police said that they heard laughs coming from the site. It is eventually revealed that Grifon was institutionalized for killing his family and children on [[Easter Sunday]].


⚫
The [[Fairfax County Police Department|Fairfax County Police]] opened investigations into both incidents, but both were eventually closed for lack of evidence. In the weeks following the incidents, more than 50 people contacted the police claiming to have seen the "Bunny Man". Several newspapers, including ''[[The Washington Post]]'', reported that the "Bunny Man" had eaten a man's runaway cat. The {{em|Post}} articles that mentioned this incident were:
For years after the "Bunny Man's" death, in the time approaching Halloween carcasses are said to be found hanging from the overpass and surrounding areas. A figure is reportedly seen by passersby making their way through the one lane bridge tunnel.
*"Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax" (October 22, 1970)<ref name="fairfaxcounty.gov">{{cite web|url=http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/bunny4.htm|title=The Bunny Man Unmasked - Page 4 - Fairfax County, Virginia|website=www.fairfaxcounty.gov|access-date=21 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170605163420/http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/bunny4.htm#|archive-date=2017-06-05|url-status=dead}}</ref>
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*"The 'Rabbit' Reappears" (October 31, 1970)<ref name="fairfaxcounty.gov" />
*"Bunny Man, Strikes again" (November 1,1970)
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*"Bunny Man Seen" (November 4, 1970)
⚫
*"Bunny Reports Are Multiplying" (November 6, 1970)


In 1973, Patricia Johnson, a student at the [[University of Maryland, College Park]], submitted a research paper that chronicled precisely 54 variations on the two incidents. Many maintain the basic plot in some shape or form, but vary in details like location and specific events. A handful even mention the Bunny Man committing murders, a detail at odds with the two documented sightings.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/bunny3.htm|title=The Bunny Man Unmasked - Page 3 - Fairfax County, Virginia|website=www.fairfaxcounty.gov|access-date=21 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160824121902/http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/bunny3.htm#|archive-date=2016-08-24|url-status=dead}}</ref> Conley cites this as evidence of how the original Bunny Man story had mutated through various retellings, and that the story would be taken to new heights during the early days of the internet.<ref name=":0">{{cite web | url=http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111030185642/http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/ | archive-date=2011-10-30 | title=The Bunny Man Unmasked - Fairfax County, Virginia }}</ref>
Conley says this version is demonstrably false. Among other inconsistencies, Conley notes that "there has never been an asylum for the insane in Fairfax County" and that "[[Lorton Prison]] didn't come into existence until 1910, and even then it was an arm of the District of Columbia Corrections system, not Virginia's." Court records show neither a Grifon nor a Wallster and, writes Conley, "there is not and never has been a Clifton Town Library."


Conley further stated that the most widely circulated version of the story was posted to the website Castle of Spirits in 1999.<ref name=":0" /> In it, user "Timothy J. Forbes" claimed the Bunny Man was a convict named Douglas J. Grifon, who escaped to a railroad overpass while being transported to a new facility by bus in 1904. The story proceeds to chronicle a series of grisly, almost supernatural murders committed at Bunny Man Bridge, most occurring decades before the officially documented sightings.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.castleofspirits.com/clifton.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111113120154/http://www.castleofspirits.com/clifton.html | archive-date=2011-11-13 | title=The Clifton Bunny Man }}</ref> According to Conley, "all of the specifics given in the Forbes version are false".<ref name=":0" /> Not only did the stated murders never happen,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/bunny2.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111101045845/http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/bunny2.htm | archive-date=2011-11-01 | title=The Bunny Man Unmasked - Page 2 - Fairfax County, Virginia }}</ref> but key institutions mentioned - such as the Old Clifton Library, allegedly the source of the author's information - never existed in the first place.<ref name=":0" />
Cryptozoologist [[Loren Coleman]], via his blog Cryptomundo and in the book <i>Weird Virginia</i>, which has a section on the Bunnyman, sees a direct correlation between the legend of Bunnyman and that of the [[Goatman]] of nearby Maryland.


==Colchester Overpass==
==Victims==
Colchester Overpass was built in about 1906<ref name="fairfax">{{cite book|last1=Netherton|first1=Nan|last2=Von Lake Wykoff|first2=Whitney|title=Fairfax Station All Aboard|year=1995|publisher=Friends of the Fairfax Station|location=Fairfax Station, Virginia|asin=B0006QCTP2|pages=41–42}}</ref> near the site of Sangster's Station, a Civil War era railroad station on what was once the [[Orange and Alexandria Railroad]].<ref name="fairfax"/> Because of its association with the legend, the overpass is a popular destination for paranormal enthusiasts ([[Ghost hunting|ghost hunters]]) and curiosity seekers ([[legend tripping|legend trippers]]).<ref>{{cite book|last=Varhola|first=Michael J.|title=Ghosthunting Virginia (America's Haunted Road Trip)|year=2008|publisher=Clerisy Press|location=Covington, Kentucky|chapter=Bunny Man Bridge (Fairfax Station)|isbn=978-1-57860-327-5|pages=15–22}}</ref> Interest increases around Halloween, and starting in 2003, local authorities began controlling access to the area during that time.<ref>{{cite news|title=Legend Lives on at Bunnyman Bridge|url=http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2003/nov/04/legend-lives-on-at-bunnyman-bridge/|access-date=May 8, 2012|newspaper=Connection Newspapers|date=November 4, 2003}}</ref> During Halloween 2011, over 200 people, some from as far away as the Pennsylvania–Maryland state line, were turned away during a 14-hour traffic checkpoint into the area.<ref>{{cite news|last=Stachyra|first=Mary C.|title=Neighbors Find 'Bunnyman Bridge' an Unwelcome Attraction|url=http://centreville.patch.com/articles/on-halloween-neighbors-find-bunnyman-bridge-an-unwelcome-attraction|access-date=May 8, 2010|newspaper=CentrevillePatch|date=November 17, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111122182228/http://centreville.patch.com/articles/on-halloween-neighbors-find-bunnyman-bridge-an-unwelcome-attraction|archive-date=November 22, 2011}}</ref>
In the legend, Bunny Man's purported victims typically are disobedient children or kids that are investigating the legend or behaving mischievously away from adult supervision. Groups are separated from one another and one group that returns to the bridge, seemingly not lost, while no trace of the other group can be found. Upon returning the next day they locate their lost friends hanging from the train bridge overpass with the same ''[[modus operandi]]'' of the "Bunny Man". Bunny man is said to hang his victims by their necks. These victims are usually taken at night.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}


==London==
==Popular culture references==
A variant of the story appeared as an urban legend in [[England]]: some detainees in [[Wembley]] police station were said to have been beaten up in their cells by an assailant dressed in a bunny mascot costume. In one version, when the station was closed, an old locker was forced open and the costume with blood stains was discovered inside.<ref>Noel Smith, ''The Criminal Alphabet'' p. 127</ref>
*''[[Donnie Darko]]'' takes place in the town of [[Middlesex, Virginia]]. The film features Frank, an ominous character, dressed in a bunny suit.

*The [[PlayStation 2]] [[video game]] ''[[Manhunt (video game)|Manhunt]]'' features a similar character, a shotgun-toting man in a bunny suit, in the stage "Kill the Rabbit", set in an abandoned insane asylum.
== See also ==
*Podcaster Mike Edwards claimed to be the latest incarnation of "Bunny Man" on the [[October 16]], [[2007]] edition of ''[http://www.garageband.com/user/InMyRoompodcast/podcast/main In My Room]''. He tells that Cerphe Calwell, an afternoon DJ on 94.7 The Globe, had passed the mantle on to him after years of dressing in a bunny suit and scaring motorists.
* ''[[Donnie Darko]]''
*In 2006, Luis Larrea, an Art Institute of Washington student, interviewed Brian A. Conley regarding information about the Bunnyman Bridge.<ref>[http://www.illimaniproductions.com/gpage4.html Luis Larrea interviewing Brian A. Conley] on [[YouTube]]</ref>
* [[Raymond Robinson (Green Man)]]
*[[Madam Koi Koi]]


==References==
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Reflist|30em}}

⚫
*[http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/bunny.htm The Bunny Man Unmasked: The Real Life Origins of an Urban Legend] from [[Fairfax County Public Library]]
==Further reading==
⚫
*[http://braddockheritage.org/resources/item/26/ Bunny Man: Artist's Rendition] from Braddock Heritage
⚫
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20111030185642/http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/ The Bunny Man Unmasked: The Real Life Origins of an Urban Legend] from [[Fairfax County Public Library]]
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*[http://braddockheritage.org/resources/item/179/ Map: Braddock's Historic Sites] from Braddock Heritage showing location of Bunny Man incidents
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*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080920023346/http://braddockheritage.org/resources/item/26/ Bunny Man: Artist's Rendition] from Braddock Heritage
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*{{cite book | author=Mark Moran and Mark Scuerman | title=Weird U.S. | publisher=Barnes and Noble | year=2004 | isbn=0-7607-5043-2}}
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*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080920023342/http://braddockheritage.org/resources/item/179/ Map: Braddock's Historic Sites] from Braddock Heritage showing location of Bunny Man incidents
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*{{cite book | author=Mark Moran and Mark Scuerman | title=Weird U.S. | publisher=Barnes and Noble | year=2004 | isbn=0-7607-5043-2 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/weirdus00mark }}
*the description of "bunny suit" was removed, because it refers to what people wear to protect from biologic contamination, [[Cleanroom suit]].


==External links==
==External links==
*[http://www.weirdus.com/stories/VA01.asp Tales of The Bunnyman of Northern Virginia] from WeirdUS.com
*[http://www.northernvirginiamag.com/entertainment/entertainment-features/2015/10/01/long-live-the-bunnyman/ Long Live The Bunnyman] by Jenny Cutler Lopez in [[Northern Virginia Magazine]] (October 2015)
*[http://www.castleofspirits.com/clifton.html The Clifton Bunny Man] from Castle Of Spirits
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080225143350/http://www.weirdus.com/stories/VA01.asp Tales of The Bunnyman of Northern Virginia] from WeirdUS.com
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20170912234902/http://www.castleofspirits.com/clifton.html The Clifton Bunny Man] from Castle Of Spirits
*[http://historicclifton.org/BunnyMan.htm The Bunny Man Bridge of Clifton Virginia] from historicclifton.org
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Bk4CXebP0 The Legend of the Bunny Man] from YouTube
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QubDmzS7wv8&index=4&list=PL6cgtmyikyYl3wD927iso5qCSAttBKzHx Interview with the Bennetts] from YouTube
*{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29963310/ames_daily_tribune/|title=Bunny man protects territorial imperative|publisher=Ames Daily Tribune|location=Ames, Iowa|date=January 2, 1970|page=4439|access-date=13 August 2018|via=newspapers.com}}
*{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29963225/the_monitormcallen_texas/|title="Bunny Man" Strikes Again in Virginia|publisher=The Monitor|location=McAllen, Texas|date=November 1, 1970|page=38|access-date=13 August 2018|via=newspapers.com}}


[[Category:Urban legends]]
{{Urban legends}}
[[Category:1970 establishments in Virginia]]
[[Category:American urban legends]]
[[Category:Supernatural urban legends]]
[[Category:Virginia folklore]]
[[Category:Fairfax County, Virginia]]
[[Category:Fairfax County, Virginia]]
[[Category:Rabbits and hares in popular culture]]
[[Category:Fictional rabbits and hares]]

Latest revision as of 20:29, 30 December 2024

For the horror film, see Bunnyman (film).

38°47′23″N 77°21′44″W / 38.78985°N 77.36225°W / 38.78985; -77.36225

Actual hatchet used by the "Bunny Man" in 1970.
The "Bunny Man Bridge" in daylight
The "Bunny Man Bridge" at night

The Bunny Man is an urban legend that originated from two incidents in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1970, but has been spread throughout the Washington, D.C., and Maryland areas. The legend has many variations; most involve a man wearing a rabbit costume who attacks people with an axe or hatchet.

Most of the stories occur around Colchester Overpass, a Southern Railway overpass spanning Colchester Road near Clifton, Virginia,[1] sometimes referred to as "Bunny Man Bridge".[2]

Versions of the legend vary in the Bunny Man's name, motives, weapons, victims, description of the bunny costume or lack thereof, and sometimes even his possible death. In some accounts, victims' bodies are mutilated, and in some variations, the Bunny Man's ghost or aging spectre is said to come out of his place of death each year on Halloween to commemorate his death.

Origin

[edit]

Fairfax County Public Library Historian-Archivist Brian A. Conley extensively researched the Bunny Man legend. He has located two incidents of a man in a rabbit costume threatening people with an axe. The vandalism reports occurred ten days apart in 1970 in Burke, Virginia.

The first incident was reported on the evening of October 19, 1970, by U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Robert Bennett and his fiancée, who were visiting relatives on Guinea Road in Burke. Around midnight, while returning from a football game, they reportedly parked their car in a field on Guinea Road to "visit an Uncle who lived across the street from where the car was parked". As they sat in the front seat with the motor running, they noticed something moving outside the rear window. Moments later, the front passenger window was smashed, and there was a white-clad figure standing near the broken window. Bennett turned the car around while the man screamed at them about trespassing, saying: "You're on private property, and I have your tag number." As they drove down the road, the couple discovered a hatchet on the car floor.

When the police requested a description of the man, Bennett insisted he was wearing a white suit with long bunny ears. However, Bennett's fiancée contested their assailant did not have bunny ears on his head, but was wearing a white capirote of some sort. They both remembered seeing his face clearly, but in the darkness, they could not determine his race. The police returned the hatchet to Bennett after examination.

The second reported sighting occurred on the evening of October 29, 1970, when construction security guard Paul Phillips approached a man standing on the porch of an unfinished home, in Kings Park West on Guinea Road. Phillips said the man was wearing a gray, black, and white bunny costume, and was about 20 years old, 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) tall, and weighed about 175 pounds (79 kg). The man began chopping at a porch post with a long-handled axe, saying: "You're trespassing. If you come any closer, I'll chop off your head."[3]

The Fairfax County Police opened investigations into both incidents, but both were eventually closed for lack of evidence. In the weeks following the incidents, more than 50 people contacted the police claiming to have seen the "Bunny Man". Several newspapers, including The Washington Post, reported that the "Bunny Man" had eaten a man's runaway cat. The Post articles that mentioned this incident were:

  • "Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax" (October 22, 1970)[4]
  • "The 'Rabbit' Reappears" (October 31, 1970)[4]
  • "Bunny Man, Strikes again" (November 1,1970)
  • "Bunny Man Seen" (November 4, 1970)
  • "Bunny Reports Are Multiplying" (November 6, 1970)

In 1973, Patricia Johnson, a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, submitted a research paper that chronicled precisely 54 variations on the two incidents. Many maintain the basic plot in some shape or form, but vary in details like location and specific events. A handful even mention the Bunny Man committing murders, a detail at odds with the two documented sightings.[5] Conley cites this as evidence of how the original Bunny Man story had mutated through various retellings, and that the story would be taken to new heights during the early days of the internet.[6]

Conley further stated that the most widely circulated version of the story was posted to the website Castle of Spirits in 1999.[6] In it, user "Timothy J. Forbes" claimed the Bunny Man was a convict named Douglas J. Grifon, who escaped to a railroad overpass while being transported to a new facility by bus in 1904. The story proceeds to chronicle a series of grisly, almost supernatural murders committed at Bunny Man Bridge, most occurring decades before the officially documented sightings.[7] According to Conley, "all of the specifics given in the Forbes version are false".[6] Not only did the stated murders never happen,[8] but key institutions mentioned - such as the Old Clifton Library, allegedly the source of the author's information - never existed in the first place.[6]

Colchester Overpass

[edit]

Colchester Overpass was built in about 1906[9] near the site of Sangster's Station, a Civil War era railroad station on what was once the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.[9] Because of its association with the legend, the overpass is a popular destination for paranormal enthusiasts (ghost hunters) and curiosity seekers (legend trippers).[10] Interest increases around Halloween, and starting in 2003, local authorities began controlling access to the area during that time.[11] During Halloween 2011, over 200 people, some from as far away as the Pennsylvania–Maryland state line, were turned away during a 14-hour traffic checkpoint into the area.[12]

London

[edit]

A variant of the story appeared as an urban legend in England: some detainees in Wembley police station were said to have been beaten up in their cells by an assailant dressed in a bunny mascot costume. In one version, when the station was closed, an old locker was forced open and the costume with blood stains was discovered inside.[13]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ 38°47′23″N 77°21′44″W / 38.78972°N 77.36222°W / 38.78972; -77.36222
  2. ^ "A tale about a tail: Northern Virginia band explores the bloody Bunny Man myth in a new rock opera". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-01-23.
  3. ^ "Antics of 'Bunny Man' Start Police Hopping". The Minneapolis Star. October 31, 1970. p. 31. Retrieved 13 August 2018 – via newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b "The Bunny Man Unmasked - Page 4 - Fairfax County, Virginia". www.fairfaxcounty.gov. Archived from the original on 2017-06-05. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  5. ^ "The Bunny Man Unmasked - Page 3 - Fairfax County, Virginia". www.fairfaxcounty.gov. Archived from the original on 2016-08-24. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  6. ^ a b c d "The Bunny Man Unmasked - Fairfax County, Virginia". Archived from the original on 2011-10-30.
  7. ^ "The Clifton Bunny Man". Archived from the original on 2011-11-13.
  8. ^ "The Bunny Man Unmasked - Page 2 - Fairfax County, Virginia". Archived from the original on 2011-11-01.
  9. ^ a b Netherton, Nan; Von Lake Wykoff, Whitney (1995). Fairfax Station All Aboard. Fairfax Station, Virginia: Friends of the Fairfax Station. pp. 41–42. ASIN B0006QCTP2.
  10. ^ Varhola, Michael J. (2008). "Bunny Man Bridge (Fairfax Station)". Ghosthunting Virginia (America's Haunted Road Trip). Covington, Kentucky: Clerisy Press. pp. 15–22. ISBN 978-1-57860-327-5.
  11. ^ "Legend Lives on at Bunnyman Bridge". Connection Newspapers. November 4, 2003. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
  12. ^ Stachyra, Mary C. (November 17, 2011). "Neighbors Find 'Bunnyman Bridge' an Unwelcome Attraction". CentrevillePatch. Archived from the original on November 22, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
  13. ^ Noel Smith, The Criminal Alphabet p. 127

Further reading

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