Urban Legends: Separating Fact from Fiction

“I will set down a tale... it may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened. But it could have happened...“
-- Mark Twain

Legend tells us that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. While the story sounds rather fanciful, there is a germ of truth to it: Snakes never existed in Ireland because the island was cut off from the European continent during the Ice Age. But snakes were a pagan symbol, and by converting some 120,000 persons to Christianity and establishing 300 churches in Ireland around 431 A.D., the missionary St. Patrick did -- in a sense -- drive the “snakes“ of the old pagan religions out of the Emerald Isle.
Today, we have many similar stories which seem so far out that they must be true. These are called urban legends: bizarre stories which turn up periodically that people swear are true, but usually turn out to be impossible to verify.

WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND
What is an urban legend? Researchers Peter van der Linden and Terry Chan offer this definition at www.urbanlegends.com:

“An urban legend:
• appears mysteriously and spreads spontaneously in varying forms.
• contains elements of humor or horror (the horror often “punishes“ someone who flouts society‘s conventions).
• makes good storytelling.
• does NOT have to be false, although most are. Urban legends often have a basis in fact, but it‘s their life after-the-fact that gives them particular interest.“

Urban legends can be found in a broad range of human endeavors: war, religion, sex, travel, race, college, computers, music -- you name it. The website, www.snopes.com, notes that some current urban legends which are making the rounds include the following. Can you tell which of these are true?
• Thieves are using phony perfume to knock out their victims.
• Concerned U.S. oil companies have stopped buying gas from the Mideast.
• Bill Gates and Microsoft are giving money to people who forward their emails to friends.
• A U.S. postage stamp honors a Muslim holiday.
According to www.snopes.com, the first three items are false, but the claim about the Muslim postage stamp is in fact true. On Sept. 1, just 10 days before the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Postal Service issued a first class 34 cent stamp honoring two of the Muslim world‘s most important festivals, the Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The U.S. stamp includes Islamic callligraphy stating, “Eid mubarak“ which can be paraphrased as, “May your religious holiday be blessed.“

INTO THE MAINSTREAM
Sometimes, urban legends make it into the news. The French journalist Pierre Salinger, for instance, caused an international sensation in 1996 when he reported that a missile had shot down TWA flight 800. The jet burst into a fireball and killed 230 people over the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island.
Unfortunately, Salinger had gotten his information from “French intelligence sources“ over the internet. It was quickly determined that the “sources“ didn‘t exist, and the missile claim was just an urban legend. Journalists were put on notice that the internet was a frequently untrustworthy source of information.
Another famous Internet hoax/urban legend was the alleged photo of a tourist on the observation deck of the World Trade Center who was unaware that a hijacked jetliner was headed his way on 9/11. Widely circulated on the internet, the photo was supposedly shot by a tourist who died in the disaster. His camera was retrieved, however, and the film was developed. Again, it didn‘t take long to determine that the photo was a hoax created with the digital manipulation of images.

THE WAR ON TERRORISM
Speaking of 9/11, the War on Terrorism has hatched numerous urban legends. Following are some popular stories which www.snopes.com claims are false:
• Hospitals reported a record number of births nine months after 9/11. (Not true: “Although some communities did receive a few more visits from the stork than the norm, there were other communities of comparable size that saw fewer births than usual.“)
• Terrorists have obtained a large number of UPS uniforms to use during acts of violence. (Not true: this urban legend may have arisen from the fact that there were simply more old UPS uniforms bought on EBay last year, possibly by common thieves, uniform collectors or sex festishists.)
• Osama bin Laden has been spotted in Utah, driving on the freeway and eating a Big Mac in a shopping mall. (No such luck.)
• Green Party activist Nancy Oden was denied permission to fly because she belonged to a political party that opposed the bombing of Afghanistan. (False: It turned out that Oden was denied a flight because airport officials said she refused to cooperate with the X-ray screening staff and became unruly, abusive and obnoxious.)

JUST PLAIN FOLKS
Then there are commonplace urban legends which have been told for decades. The story of the “hook-hand“ prowler of lovers‘ lanes for instance. Two teenagers making out hear something strange scratching at their door and drive off, only to find a hook in the door handle when they get home -- the hook of a maniac who has been carving young lovers to pieces...
Author and researcher Jan Harold Brunvand has written a number of books on urban legends, including “The Vanishing Hitchhiker,“ “The Mexican Pet,“ “The Choking Doberman,“ “Curses! Broiled Again“ and “The Baby Train.“
A typical urban legend might be that of the kids who stick their wet baby brother in the microwave to dry him off and end up cooking him alive. Or, the outrageous slander against actor Richard Gere, who is alleged to have enjoyed placing gerbils in his rectum during his single days.
“The Mexican Pet“ is an oft-told tale. A wealthy American woman goes to Tijuana on vacation and falls in love with a cute little dog she finds in the street. When she takes it home to the States, she‘s horrified to learn from her vet that she has in fact adopted a giant long-haired Mexican rat.

LOST HIGHWAY
On a personal note, in the early 1970s, newspapers throughout the Midwest were reporting the story of a mysterious hitchhiker who‘d been spotted on the Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpikes. The hitchhiker was the silent type, refusing to say a thing until the speedometer hit 65 mph. Then he‘d announce, “Jesus is coming“ and would disappear.
At the height of the hitchhiker hysteria, my brother Mike and I drove north one night in I-75 in search of him. Sure enough, we found a male hitchhiker at 14 Mile Road, standing there in the dark. He climbed into our ‘65 Dodge Dart and we headed north to Flint. Slowly, the speedometer crept up... 50, 55, 60 mph, with the suspense as thick as asphalt in the car. With the hair on the back of my neck standing straight up, I pushed the car past 65 mph and looked over at the hitchhiker. Unfortunately, he refused to disappear, and we wound up driving him all the way to Haloburger in Flint.
Mike and I had another run-in with an urban legend a few years before that in 1964, when a nine-foot-tall, 400 lb. hairy monster man was reported by a migrant berry picker in mid-Michigan. Newspapers across the state were quick to report the presence of monster prowling the woodlands. Thousands of monster hunters went on the alert, mobilizing to find the beastie. And at our own home in the woods outside Grand Rapids, we listened out our bedroom window one night to a long, mournful, moaning cry drifting from the forest.
Our blood ran cold with fear that night, but years later we decided it was probably just a passing loon.

-- by Robert Downes

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