BY ELLA THOMPSON AND JOHN OBERST

Tucked off the side of Burt street, right next to Creighton’s Campus, a building stands apart from the others. Although the Mystery Manor might fit inside one of Omaha’s older neighborhoods scattered around the city, it looks out of place next to the new state-of-the-art Rasmussen Center. But, the Mystery Manor is one of the centers of Omaha’s spookiest history: the city’s urban legends. 

Omaha has no shortage of urban legends, but spooky stories around the campfire can only go so far. The new local podcast, Omaha’s Urban Legends: The Secrets Hidden in the Midwest, will explore the lore and tell the bizarre, scary and surreal stories of Omaha. Believers and skeptics from across Omaha will share their encounters with the supernatural in haunted haunts across the metro.

Children are not the only ones who believe in ghost stories. As Omaha has grown as a city, people have taken to believing in local legends and there is no shortage of these stories. Legends such as radioactive hornets, murderous teachers, explosive rabbits and drought-curing superhumans have been part of local lore for decades. 

Message boards abound with discussions of urban legends across the Omaha metro area. “Paranormal Investigators” working for the website P.R.I.S.M. have ventured to places such as Haunted Hollow in La Vista and O’Connor’s Pub in the Old Market. Some of these haunted places, such as Mystery Manor and Haunted Hollow, are even turning a profit by utilizing their space as spooky Halloween attractions. 

Reputable local news organizations sponsored investigations into claims of haunted locations in Omaha. The Omaha World-Herald published articles detailing the legend of the Black Angel in Council Bluffs. Legend has it that anyone who looks into the eyes of the statue at midnight will experience an early death. 

Carol Zuegner, an Omaha native, recalled her high school memories of testing fate at the Black Angel. 

“We all would go there at night and then touch the hand and shriek a lot,” recounted Zuegner.

Even local authorities have engaged with the myth; the Council Bluffs Government Website depicts the history of the statue in which the design came to Ruth Anne Dodge in a recurring dream prior to her death.

The Daily Nebraskan got in on the legends and sent a team of reporters to experience Hummel Park at night. 

“When we reached the Hummel Park pavilion, things still didn’t seem strange. For me, things began to change when it got darker and when the only light we had left was the flashlights on our phones. I still didn’t ‘sense’ anything, but I began to understand why people have always thought this place was so spooky,” reported Grace Bradford from The Daily Nebraskan.

Although these investigations yielded no proof of the claims of what happens in these supposed haunted locations, they show a greater trend: People believe in these stories. 

Local high schoolers are known to spend hours at night searching for tribes of feral albino cannibals, counting steps leading through the park and studying drooping tree branches. 

Seth O’Reilly recounted some of the stories he heard growing up as an Omaha native. Describing the legend, O’Reilly stated that “women who gave birth to an albino baby and didn’t want it, would drop the baby off at Hummel. So the baby would grow up in the park and grow up as a cannibal.”

Although there have been no substantial reports of albino cannibals around the park, there have been a few deaths, murders and crimes that keep the haunted reputation going.

Omaha urban legends have existed in the media and in high school lore and these stories have been cherished by generations. To learn more about Omaha’s local legends and their extensive histories tune into Omaha’s Urban Legends: The Secrets Hidden in the Midwest.