In 2015, Seamus Coffey, a Calloway County, Kentucky resident wrote a sensational horror story on Reddit and on ThoughtCatalog.com about a town called Elsewhere, Kentucky.

The story is written from his personal account about a time he visited Elsewhere, a town that once existed two miles north of New Concord.  It tells of the grisly and secretive history of the settlement and its subsequent disappearance in the 1950s.  You can read the entire story here (Warning:  contains some profanity). 

Coffey’s short story paints a factual account of Elsewhere, even quoting a supposed newspaper article about the sudden abandonment of town from the Louisville Courier-Journal.  Real business names and places are used to tell the story, which creates a sense of truthfulness about Elsewhere.

Even though his first-person tale is outlandish, it has sparked many questions if the town did exist at one point. Coffey’s experience is obviously fiction.  And I hate to disappoint, but the town of Elsewhere doesn’t exist and never has.

In this Wikipedia Talk:Calloway County, Kentucky post in 2016, a year or so after his story went viral, Coffey wrote:

Despite being a popular story, it is a fictional location. There has never been a town named Elsewhere, Kentucky.

Regardless, the wildly popular tale of Elsewhere, Kentucky continues to circulate on social media accounts.  Some people even fan the flames and claim that the town is real, did exist, and the rubble can still be found deep in the woods around Blood River. 

Further, some have said denying the existence of Elsewhere is a conspiracy to hide the truth of what happened there.  All this of course is fake – sensationalized by social media and a few trolls.

OnlyInYourState.com pushed the legend of Elsewhere as a real place in one of their articles shortly after Coffey’s story appeared.  A handful of other media and blogging sites have promoted the story.  But it is all fiction – the story, the town… all of it.

I don’t believe Coffey was intending to fool folks.  I think he just wanted to write a horror story.  This is a good reminder to not always believe most stuff you read on the internet.  And yes, I do see the irony in that statement.