Buck Wolf, of the
Wolf Files on Abcnews.com has investigated urban
legends and found out that while many are indeed myths,
some of even the most bizarre are true.
An example of a false one is the story of the woman
who tried to dry her freshly-shampooed poodle in her
microwave. Here?s another: A woman on a flight from
Scandinavia to the United States had to be pried free by a
rescue team after a high-pressure vacuum flush sealed her
to the toilet of a Boeing 767. It was reported in dozens of
newspapers, websites, and TV news reports. According to
Reuters, ?She could not get up by herself and had to sit on
the toilet until the flight had landed so that ground
technicians could help her get loose,? an airline spokeswoman
said. ?She was stuck there for quite a long time.?
To the embarrassment of the news sources that reported it,
this story turned out to be another urban legend.
Wolf wanted to find urban legends that are true or at least
based on a true story. Here?s one: On the day that American
Airlines Flight 587 crashed in New York, both of New Jersey?s
winning Pick 3 lottery combinations included the numbers 5,
8, and 7. The morning drawing was 5-7-8. The later drawing
was 5-8-7. True story.
?Urban legends are not the same thing as fictional tales,?
says Barbara Mikkelson, who runs
Snopes.com, a
website that investigates urban legends. ?A story becomes a
legend when it is circulated widely and regarded as the
truth. Whether they actually occurred or not is irrelevant.
When you look into legends, you see that they tell us a lot
about our fears and obsessions.?
Here are other true urban legends: A lawyer demonstrating
the safety of windows in a Toronto skyscraper deliberately
crashed through a pane of glass and plunged to his death.
Garry Hoy, 38, fell from the 24th floor of the Toronto
Dominion Bank Tower in 1993 as horrified witnesses
watched.
In 1986, the sheriff of Council Grove, Kansas, (population
2,300) accidentally returned an erotic video of him and his
wife having sex to his local rental store. Soon, everyone in
town seemed to have a copy.
In 1982, A student at the University of Alabama School of
Medicine recognized one of the nine cadavers taken to her
class for dissection. It was her great aunt, who had at one
time discussed the merits of donating one?s body to medical
science.
In 1982, Larry Walters of Los Angeles soared thousands of
feet in the air on a lawn chair tethered to 45 weather
balloons. He got so high, he disrupted air traffic and was
eventually fined $4,000 by the Federal Aviation
Administration. The 33-year-old Vietnam Veteran purchased
the chair from Sears, hoping to fly it 300 miles from his
home to the Mojave Desert.
In 1994, a 33-year-old Floridian man got his penis trapped
in the suction hole of a public swimming pool while
apparently seeking sexual pleasure. Paramedics shut off the
pool?s pump, but the man's penis had become extremely
swollen. They struggled for more than 40 minutes to pry him
loose. After lubricating the suction fitting, the man was
taken to Lakeland Regional Medical Center.
For five years, Webster's New International Dictionary
mistakenly included an entry for ?dord,? a nonexistent word.
In the mid 1930s, Dord could be found on page 771, nestled
between Dorcopsis (a type of small kangaroo) and doré
(golden in color), It was defined as ?density.?
A prop corpse hanging in a Long Beach, Calif., funhouse
turned out to be the real remains of an outlaw. In 1976,
scenes for the hit TV show The Six Million Dollar Man were
being shot at the Nu-Pike Amusement Park. When a
production worker moved the fun house ?hanging man,? the
prop?s arm came off. Inside was human bone ? The corpse
proved to be the remains of train robber Elmer McCurdy.
To read more true urban legends,
click here.
