Debunking hoaxes and rumors

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 4:58 pm

I'd like to add my voice to that of @T'lainya's on this. I started this thread to cover one particular subject, and I'd appreciate it if we could keep it that way. Feel free to discuss evolution/creation in another thread. There's plenty of content here just in debunking urban myths, national legends, etc.

EMINEM · Post by **EMINEM** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 5:05 pm

But fable, evolution IS an urban myth, a national legend...

All right, I'll stop.

T'lainya · Post by **T'lainya** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 5:09 pm

Eminem...that is enough

Sailor Saturn · Post by **Sailor Saturn** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 5:16 pm

Originally posted by EMINEM
But fable, evolution IS an urban myth, a national legend...

All right, I'll stop.

I just want to point out that I have more control than EMINEM. I considered posting something just like this, but refrained.

Perhaps the rumors/myths I've heard from various sources about my lack of self-control will finally fade away.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 5:19 pm

Originally posted by EMINEM
But fable, evolution IS an urban myth, a national legend...

I understand you see it like that, but that's just like if I were to start a religion v atheism debate here and say christianity is a persisting myth. I think both the evolution/creationism and religon/atheism are too vast topics to be discussed within an "urban legend" frame.

Let me instead post one of Swedens most persistent urban legends: The rat tooth in the pizza.

For many years now, stories have been going about somebody finding a rat tooth in a pizza. Nobody who tells the story have first hand experience of this, not do they know the person who experienced it. It's always "a friend's friend", something typical for urban legends. According to a Swedish folklore researcher who has written books and debate articles about urban legends, this event has never happened. Nobody seems to have experienced it, nobody knows who was supposed to have experienced it, and there are no reports of similar incidents. It seems to be a real myth.

Another common myth that was popular especially in the 1980's, was the old lady who tried to dry her cat in the microwave. This, I belive, is an international urban legend, in the western world at least.

I think both the above examples illustrates what I posted above about urban legends often forming when new things are introduced in a society. The micro was new in Sweden in the 80's, the pizza came in the late 60's, and the rat tooth rumour was most widespread during the 70's.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 5:55 pm

Oh, you've got that one in Sweden, have you, @CE? In the US and Canada, the story is (almost expectedly) less subtle: it's a dead rat that's found in a bottle of beer. Again, no one has ever actually seen this--it's always somebody's friend who found it. A more recent variation is the rat's paw found in a MacDonald's hamburger. Now, I'm not a fan of MacDonald's, and I dont' eat there, but as often as I ask when somebody brings this story up, nobody has actually seen it. The wisdom is culturally received.

Reminds me of my period as a DM in an online multiplayer game. In the four years I was employed there, players accepted that our representation of lavender increased the speed of healing. It was also received wisdom, and unlike so many tests player-administered to weapons, armor, etc, nobody ever challenged this. But it was untrue, and it had never been said or implied by any of the DMs. Who knows how it got started?

T'lainya · Post by **T'lainya** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 6:03 pm

Living in Arizona one of my favorites is the couple who went to Mexico and saw a chihuahua. They adopted it and brought it back to the states. When they took it to a local vet to get its shots, the surprised vet told them their new pet was a very large rat.

Sailor Saturn · Post by **Sailor Saturn** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 6:21 pm

Originally posted by T'lainya
Living in Arizona one of my favorites is the couple who went to Mexico and saw a chihuahua. They adopted it and brought it back to the states. When they took it to a local vet to get its shots, the surprised vet told them their new pet was a very large rat.

Since I moved to Arizona, I've heard one particular myth very often. This myth is that there are actually lakes in Arizona. I have yet to see one.

Actually, I have heard of one involving a lake, though I'm not sure if it is a lake in Arizona or Mexico, but it's about a woman the ghost of a woman who supposedly drowned her children in the aforementioned lake. I don't recall the details of this myth/legend, though.

Curdis · Post by **Curdis** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 6:25 pm

If you dig hard enough (on Urban Legends) you can find the story about the Mexican robbers and the toothbrush with photo - PG13 - gross. What I liked about this one was when investigated it turned out it was true

I used to like the Darwin Awards (Disclaimer: this is not in anyway connected with the posts regarding 'other stuff') until I found out that MOST of the stories were made up. It took most of the fun away for me. - Curdis !

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 6:26 pm

One of my favorite hoaxes is Ajib the Chess-player. He first appeared in the mid18th century, a supposedly mechanical man who could play a very good game of chess. His "inventor" took him on tour for a number of years, appearing at various European courts to great acclaim, until it was finally revealed that Ajib was a bit of machiney controlled by a second man, hidden in its wheeled base. It always surprised me that nobody would ever question the veracity of Ajib, or ask to examine him/it. But then, heads of government weren't any more likely to be rocket scientists at the time than they are, now.

A second hoax depended from this one. In the late 19th century, PT Barnum (whose hoaxes and cynicism were well-known) claimed to have the original Ajib the Chess-player on display. It wasn't. Ajib remained in Europe, although I've no idea where his final resting place is.

T'lainya · Post by **T'lainya** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 7:18 pm

Originally posted by Sailor Saturn

Actually, I have heard of one involving a lake, though I'm not sure if it is a lake in Arizona or Mexico, but it's about a woman the ghost of a woman who supposedly drowned her children in the aforementioned lake. I don't recall the details of this myth/legend, though.

Are you thinking of La llorona the wailing woman? She drowned her children and wanders the streets looking for them

It's a common legend in Mexico

Details vary a bit from place to place I believe

Sailor Saturn · Post by **Sailor Saturn** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 7:24 pm

Originally posted by T'lainya

Are you thinking of La llorona the wailing woman? She drowned her children and wanders the streets looking for them It's a common legend in Mexico Details vary a bit from place to place I believe

Yeah, I think that's it. I've only heard it a few times in my Intercultural Communication class.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 8:49 pm

Originally posted by fable
A more recent variation is the rat's paw found in a MacDonald's hamburger. Now, I'm not a fan of MacDonald's, and I dont' eat there, but as often as I ask when somebody brings this story up, nobody has actually seen it.

The back half of a rat has been found in a McDonalds burger, a few years ago - it was in the news

Maybe that's where your myth originated from.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 9:22 pm

Originally posted by Georgi

The back half of a rat has been found in a McDonalds burger, a few years ago - it was in the news Maybe that's where your myth originated from.

When such things actually happen, it's likely they will add "credibility by similarity" to the orginial myth, ie the tooth in Sweden and the rat-in-a-bottle in North America.

Ghost stories are a nice, often harmless form of urban legends, and many ghost stories seem to be very similar in many countries. The lifter who disapperead and later turned out to be a dead person is present in all Western countries I know, I think.

T'lainya · Post by **T'lainya** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 9:36 pm

CE, There's another common ghost story here in the states. The hitchhiking girl in a prom dress whos given a ride home. She borrows a young mans jacket and takes it inside with her. The next morning when the young man goes to retrieve his jacket, the mother shows pictures of her dead daughter and the jacket is found on her grave.
Does that story exist in some form in Europe?

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 10:43 pm

Let us not forget the urban legend about a pair of pet baby alligators that some child flushed down a toilet, which has in turn led to a race of sewer-bred alligators that occasionally rise from manholes in the dead of night.

T'lainya · Post by **T'lainya** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 10:58 pm

@ Fable
Are they related to the big black spiders that are shipped with bananas?

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 11:00 pm

Originally posted by T'lainya
CE, There's another common ghost story here in the states. The hitchhiking girl in a prom dress whos given a ride home. She borrows a young mans jacket and takes it inside with her. The next morning when the young man goes to retrieve his jacket, the mother shows pictures of her dead daughter and the jacket is found on her grave.
Does that story exist in some form in Europe?

Hm, not that I have heard. The jacket on the grave adds an extra dimenstion to the story. There are myths here too about young men falling in love with a pretty girl who later turns out to be a ghost, but the borrowing of a something that belongs to the living person, the next morning visit and the thing found on the dead persons grave, is a motive I've never heard in Europe.

What about the lady walking on water-story? Do you have that in the US? In several European countries, at least North West Europe, we have this story about a lady, often dressed in white, who is walking on the surfaces of a lake. The motive varies a little, sometimes the woman child has drowned in that lake and she is looking for it, sometimes she was murdered by drowning in the lake and is looking for the perpertrator (usually a man that she was in love with). I used to love this story as a child

@Fable: The climate makes that kind of urband legend impossible in Sweden

T'lainya · Post by **T'lainya** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 11:10 pm

@ CE I hadn't ever heard the Lady who walks on water story. Interesting variation.

I wonder if it has roots in the older pagan water spirit myths? (Naiads and local water deities)

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 11:57 pm

Originally posted by fable
Let us not forget the urban legend about a pair of pet baby alligators that some child flushed down a toilet, which has in turn led to a race of sewer-bred alligators that occasionally rise from manholes in the dead of night.

Are they related to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?