Montana is dotted with ghost towns, remnants of bygone eras that stand as silent reminders of the state’s rich past. The folklore around an entire town called Langville suggests that it seemingly disappeared overnight, leaving no physical evidence of its existence.
The state of Montana has quite a few ghost towns, not to mention the odd legend here and there. One of the lesser-known tales of the Treasure State is related to a somewhat bizarre “urban legend” of a town that may have allegedly ‘vanished overnight’. If you’ve never heard of Langville before, this is a whispered topic of Montana folklore shrouded in mystery and myth.But what truth, if any, lies behind the story of Montana’s vanishing town
The Mysterious Case of Langville
Distant legend has it that Langville was actually a real town in a small rural spot possibly on the eastern plains. Apparently, it vanished entirely, rather mysteriously, sometime in the early 2000s.
The town even showed up on Google Maps but no one could find it in person. Google Maps apparently has saved images from street views but no map of the town.
To confound matters even further there have been more than 7 million recorded searches for the town. No one seems able to know why or explain this as it doesn’t exist!
Yet the bizarre thing is that there is no existing evidence related to the images that would help track down the mysterious town.
Langville is now often simply listed as an urban legend, and this was bolstered significantly by the reference made to it in the latest Ghostbusters movie.
Was Langville a Real Place?
Everything related to the legend of Langville is shrouded in mystery and story-telling. Only rumors exist about the mysterious ghost town that disappeared without a trace.
However, many other ghost towns in the region have vanished by definition, but have still left some last remnant or remain from a time gone by. Langville is the odd one out as it didn’t seem to leave behind any physical evidence whatsoever if it did indeed exist.
Other ghost towns in Montana exhibit remains of their existence in an era gone by. You may see remnants of buildings that served as saloons, old barns, homes, and even main street businesses except for in the elusive Langville.
Did a Town in Montana Simply Disappear?
As no Google search will produce any photos of Langville, and there is no existing evidence of it in history books, it’s hard to believe that any town was ever there in the first place.
But this legend that Langville was a small rural spot that mysteriously vanished seems to keep resurfacing. The various discussions of it even claim that all previous discussions of it also disappeared.
Thanks possibly to what could be termed the ‘Mandela Effect’, you will find locals in some areas of Montana who swear Langville used to exist.
There have been reports over the years of the town appearing in Google search autocomplete boxes for a time as well as recommended search options neither of which yielded any results.
There were also some other intriguing titles such as “Langville, Montana Incident”, “Langville, Montana Disappeared“, and, most bizarrely, “Langville, Montana Turned Inside Out.” Needless to say, these have all been difficult if not impossible to follow up on or clarify.
One famous angle is that the residents supposedly disappeared in a somewhat ghastly way, with reports of many believers consistently saying that some mysterious force turned the people in the town “inside out.”
So-called conspiracy theory types have apparently had a field day investigating and suspecting that the town had not only disappeared but that all data on it had been somehow expunged from the internet.
What’s the Deal with the Ghostbusters Reference?
One of the fueling factors that have once again helped bring the Langville legend to light is the mention of it in the recent Ghostbusters sequel.
While it is highly likely that this whole thing is related to some form of clever marketing angle on the movie a kind of publicity campaign some locals have claimed that the rumors of a vanished Montana town are longstanding and go back way before the movie.
Apparently several of the film’s reviewers hailing from Montana referred to the town as a real place. But that could also just be yet more hearsay.
At one point in the movie when the Ghostbusters Team is in the mayor’s office, one of them indicates why it’s best to keep their operations under wraps.
Agent Rourke then says “A police officer in New Mexico reports a UFO encounter. The crew of the SS Ourang Medan mysteriously dies. The entire town of Langville, Montana goes missing.”
Boom and there you have it! And yet any closer investigation or prodding seems to bring about only more whispers and shadows.
Of course, there are many people, both local and otherwise, who attest that the whole Langville legend is a carefully crafted hoax whether for publicity or tourism purposes. But make of it what you will, this ‘missing Montana town’ does like to crop up from time to time.
The Bottom Line
Langville may simply go down as one of the ‘vanished town’ urban legend phenomena. If people from Montana do recall any details of the town that disappeared sometime during the beginning of the Millenium, it is usually somewhat vague. Despite claims of its mysterious disappearance, there is no credible evidence that such a town ever existed. Langville has been dubbed “the town the internet wants you to forget” due to the fact that at some point in the two decades’ worth of searches for the town they began yielding nothing and that’s when the mystery began.
While intriguing, the tale of Langville seems to be a product of internet folklore rather than a real historical event. It’s a fascinating illustration of how urban legends may develop and thrive in the digital age, making it harder to distinguish between fact and fiction.