For more than fifty years, Clifton, Virginia has lived with the legend of the Bunny Man, a figure in white seen carrying an axe near an old railway bridge at the edge of town. First reported in 1970 by Air Force cadet Robert Bennett and security guard Paul Phillips, the sightings sparked police investigations, newspaper stories, and a wave of midnight dares to visit the Colchester Overpass after dark.
The trail runs from original case files to modern eyewitness accounts, from a single man in a strange costume to a full blown local myth that shapes high school rituals, real estate worries, and even law enforcement protocol. The question is what makes a story cross from rumor into folklore, and why some figures never leave the roadside once they take root in the local imagination.
