BEAVER FALLS, Pa. (KDKA) — There is a legend dating back nearly 70 years in western Pennsylvania that a faceless glowing green man roams the area’s roads and tunnels in the dead of night, hunting all those who dare to look at it.

But it turns out the Green Man wasn’t a monster and was as real as you or me.

“There was a real green man,” said local ghost historian Thomas White. “His name was Ray Robinson and he lived in Beaver County. He was born in 1910. In 1919 he was out with some friends, they were going swimming, it was June 1919 and they had a bet to climb the Harmony on the railroad bridge at Beaver Falls and counts how many eggs were in a bird’s nest So he climbs up, he grabs something he thinks is safe and it turns out to be the live wire. which supplies the cart with electricity.

Robinson was horribly electrocuted, with much of his arm and face burned. Most thought the boy would die, but Robinson miraculously survived – although now mostly blind and disfigured.

As the years passed, Robinson began walking the roads and streets near where his family lived in Koppel, always at night. And while his goal was to draw as little attention to himself as possible, people, especially teenagers in the 1950s and 1960s, would wander the city’s roads, just to catch a glimpse and even meet Robinson.

“Actually, most people, when they met him and started talking to him, found out he was a great guy,” White said. “He knew all the baseball stats, he had them memorized. People brought him beer and cigarettes. There were always a few mean people who did mean things to him. But if you gave him an unopened can of beer or unopened cigarettes or something, he would take them and tell stories.”

By the 1970s, Robinson walked less, and many of the teenagers who met and picked him up had moved away. They began to tell the story of the man they knew, but their stories and the truth about Robinson became skewed and the urban legend of Charlie No Face or Green Man persisted and took on a life of its own.

Robinson died in the 1980s, but people like his great-niece Paulin LaCount say the monster stories that are now associated with his uncle are not the way he should be remembered.

“I think his legacy should really be that he was nice to everyone,” LaCount said. “He didn’t like anyone. He always tried to be friendly to everyone, he was always caring. And I think that’s why he was left here when he was electrocuted at age of 8 years old, because the Lord wanted him to show people that you can be kind to everyone, no matter what they look like.”