Encounter Atlas
The Bunny Man is a northern Virginia urban legend about a figure in a rabbit costume who threatens or attacks people with an axe or hatchet. Most retellings place him at the Colchester Overpass, a narrow one-lane railroad bridge near Clifton that locals now call Bunny Man Bridge.
Unlike many legends, this one has a documented starting point. Fairfax County Public Library historian Brian Conley traced it to two police reports from Burke in October 1970. In the first, a young couple parked on Guinea Road said a man in a white suit with long ears shouted about trespassing and threw a hatchet through their car window. Less than two weeks later a security guard said a man in a rabbit costume hacked at a porch post at an unfinished house and threatened him. The Washington Post covered both, and dozens more people called police claiming sightings.
Over the following decades the story grew. A 1973 University of Maryland student paper logged 54 versions, and a widely shared 1999 internet post invented an escaped asylum inmate and a string of murders. Conley found no record of any killings. The overpass is on an active rail line and draws crowds every Halloween, so local police patrol it.
What witnesses report
- A man in a white or grey rabbit suit with long ears
- An axe or hatchet
- Shouting about trespassing
- Stories centred on a dark one-lane railroad overpass
Famous cases
- 1970Hatchet thrown through a parked car's window on Guinea Road
Burke, Virginia - 1970Man in rabbit costume chops at a porch post
Burke, Virginia
Seen the Bunny Man?
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