If you believe in that sort of thing, Northern Virginia is full of paranormal activity.
Our recorded history dates back to the Colonial era, so it’s no surprise we have them –- the spirit of a young woman at Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria, a ghost named Lucy who made herself known at the former Old Towne Inn in Manassas, the Civil War spirits at Manassas National Battlefield, the Brentsville Jail and Balls Bluff in Leesburg, the apparition of a Native American man (among many others) in Occoquan.
Here we take a look at a few of the more enduring Northern Virginia urban legends, and some of the truth behind them.
Clifton’s Bunny Man Bridge
No one’s quite sure where it started, but one of Northern Virginia’s most famous urban legends centers around an overpass in Clifton.
According to lore, a man in a white rabbit suit haunts Old Colchester Road outside the small town of Clifton. And on Halloween night, anyone brave enough to go there may be found hanging dead from the overpass the next day.
Brian Conley, a historian-archivist for the Fairfax Public Library system, researched tales of the “Bunny Man” and found some evidence that might explain where the tales began.
In a 2008 paper entitled “The Bunny Man Unmasked: The Real Life Origins of an Urban Legend,” Conley uncovered some old stories in the Washington Post dating from 1970 about a man in a bunny suit terrorizing people on Guinea Road in Fairfax just before Halloween. In the first case, an Air Force cadet and a female friend were attacked by a man in a white suit “with long bunny ears,” who threw a hatchet through the windshield of their car before skipping off into the night.
The Bunny Man appeared again a few days later in the same area and was seen hacking a home under construction with a hatchet. He was scared off by a security guard.
Police investigated, but never found the Bunny Man.
Witches’ Pond
In an eerie Colonial-era cemetery off Aquia Creek in North Stafford, people say they’ve encountered the supernatural, particularly around a nearby pond.
Some say they’ve seen a woman hovering above the water, or the footpath leading past the pond to the cemetery, which is the final resting place for many members of the Brent family – the first Catholic settlers in the New World.
There are also reports of loud splashing noises, and of the water turning blood red.
Witches’ pond is also the site of a long-unsolved mystery. In November 1998, a woman’s body was discovered nearby covered in leaves. To this day, she has not been identified. Her body was found fully clothed and among her jewelry was a black onyx ring with a design in the shape of a pentagram. The medical examiner’s office could not determine a cause of death.
“You would think someone, somewhere misses her,” Capt. William Bowler of the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office said in a 2012 interview with the News & Messenger.
Rippon Lodge
Legend has it, the old house on the hill is so haunted that the route of King’s Highway – now U.S. 1 – was changed to give it a wide berth.
“This house is said to be haunted in so ghostly and sinister fashion that no one will occupy it, and the public road has changed its course to avoid the neighborhood,” reads the Manassas Journal, in a story dated May 1911.
Rippon Lodge, built in 1747 and sitting on 43 picturesque acres above Neabsco Creek in Woodbridge, is one of the oldest homes in Prince William County. Who knows what spirits might be lurking?