“A man dressed in a white suit with long bunny ears appeared.”

The Bunny Man is an urban legend that originated from two incidents reported in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1970. Over the years, the story has taken on a life of its own. Most versions tell of a man dressed in a rabbit costume who appears at night, often carrying an axe or hatchet, and attacks people who get too close to his territory. The story has become one of those local legends where the line between what actually happened and what people have added over the years can be difficult to see.

But there is a real story underneath the legend.

On October 18, 1970, the Washington Post reported an incident involving Air Force Academy cadet Robert Bennett and his fiancée. The couple was sitting in a car on the 5400 block of Guinea Road in Fairfax around midnight, near Bennett’s uncle’s house, when a man wearing a white suit and long rabbit ears appeared. According to the report, the man shouted at the couple that they were on private property and told them that he had their license plate number. He then threw a wood-handled hatchet through the front window of their car.

That sounds like something pulled straight from a horror movie, but the newspaper account did not describe a supernatural figure or a mysterious killer. It described a very real and very strange encounter with an unidentified man wearing a bunny costume.

A second incident was reported later that year and is another important part of the legend. A man working on a house in the area reported seeing someone dressed in a bunny costume who confronted him and threatened him. Like the first encounter, it was unusual enough to become part of the growing story surrounding the mysterious “Bunny Man.”

From there, the legend began to grow.

As stories were retold, details changed. The man became more threatening. The hatchet became an axe. The encounters became more mysterious, and eventually stories began circulating about the Bunny Man haunting the area around an abandoned railroad bridge and an underpass. Some versions claim that anyone who enters the area after midnight risks encountering him.

The bridge and surrounding area certainly look like the kind of place where a story like this could take hold. Dark roads, an underpass, wooded areas, and very little activity at night create the perfect setting for an urban legend. Add a story about a man in a rabbit costume throwing a hatchet through a car window, and it is easy to understand why generations of teenagers have been fascinated by the place.

Still, there is no solid evidence that a supernatural Bunny Man ever haunted the area, nor that the location became the scene of the murders and disappearances sometimes included in later versions of the story. Those details belong to the legend, not the documented history.

Today, the Bunny Man legend is especially popular around Halloween, when stories about seeing him at night begin making their rounds again. The location has become a destination for people looking to experience a little of the legend for themselves, although much of what visitors expect to find comes from years of storytelling rather than historical evidence.

In that way, the Bunny Man reminds me of the clown sightings that spread across the country a few years ago. A strange figure appears somewhere at night, someone takes a photograph or tells a story, and suddenly everyone wants to know what—or who—is hiding in the dark.

Maybe that is why these stories stick with us.

We know the Bunny Man legend isn’t entirely true. We also know it didn’t come from nowhere.

Somewhere in Fairfax County in 1970, a man really did put on a rabbit costume, walk up to a car in the middle of the night, threaten two people, and throw a hatchet through their window.

And honestly, that part is creepy enough without adding anything else.