Ship of Fools: What is your favorite urban legend?

Thread: What is your favorite urban legend? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Loquacious beachcomber (# 8783) on :

Hey listen, did you know that if you order a large pizza, you get an identical amount of ingredients as you would on a medium-sized one?
They just spread them out more on a large one, to cover the larger surface of the pizza.
There's lots of stuff like this they almost no one catches onto; I bet you could add to this with your own favorite urban legend.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

If you're born on a plane or a ship, you not only get the nationality of the craft you're travelling on, but free travel for life.

Other urban legends that I enjoy include the Phantom Hitchhiker and other tales of the paranormal, but I don't think that's quite the sort of thing you had in mind.

Posted by Loquacious beachcomber (# 8783) on :

Did you know that fast-food joints not only expect you to toss their drink cups on the sidewalk, they actually want you to?
These companies get far more income as a result of the free advertising on the side of their discarded cups than they do by selling the contents of the cups, so they arrange their meal deals so that most people will order a larger drink than they can finish, and toss it away in frustration because the ice in it is freezing their hands.
And this is something I know for sure to be true; my Uncle Louis told me, and he would know. One of his grandsons worked for a fast-food joint for a week.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

Don't know if this is quite what you mean, but for quite some time at a wedding on Saturday night I found myself unable to escape a conversation with a gentleman who had the scoop on what really happened to Princess Di. It's official: the Queen had her murdered because she didn't want her son's wife hanging out with an Arab. Adnan Khashoggi also had something to do with it, apparently.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
the Queen had her murdered.

I'm sorry; HM doesn't do assassinations. Everyone knows it was the Duke of Edinburgh.

[ 03. September 2012, 20:04: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
the Queen had her murdered.
I'm sorry; HM doesn't do assassinations. Everyone knows it was the Duke of Edinburgh.

That's the basis of 007 too. HM issues a 'licence to kill' but does not instruct her agents to do so.

Unless she does so, in which case we will never know. Don't you all know that MI5 and MI6 are fronts for the 'real' Secret Service? A man from UCL told me so.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Other urban legends that I enjoy include the Phantom Hitchhiker and other tales of the paranormal...

Yes - and the Mersey Tunnel version is simply the best.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

The moon landings never really happened. They were instead filmed on a large lump of cheese (or some other mysterious location). [Paranoid]

Posted by Scarlet (# 1738) on :

Oh, please! The moon landings were staged at Area 51.

There's a great movie from the early '90's: Sneakers that has Dan Aykroyd as a conspiracy obsessed but otherwise brilliant technician. I think this was covered in that movie (along with cattle mutilations)...

Wish I still had a copy.

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Scarlet:
Oh, please! The moon landings were staged at Area 51. ...

Not in Iceland then?

Posted by Cryptic (# 16917) on :

So many to choose from... I've always enjoyed a good urban myth, Snopes is a good read.

It never ceases to amaze me how folk are taken in by them, particularly people whose professionals backgrounds should help them to know better. I was working with a couple of engineers a few years ago that staunchly believed that the moon landing was a hoax (they weren't terribly good engineers either). Another person that I worked with some years ago - a scientist who still works for a large research organisation - told me about his friend at uni, an undergraduate engineer who built a steam-driven car as a uni project. One of the major oil companies sent some heavies around to his house to beat him up - because any work on alternative energy has to be suppressed...

I don't have any real favourites, but here is one that I have never seen written down. It was told to be by a friend of my mother's, I always suspected it was a myth because mum's friend was a notorious teller of tall and outrageous stories. It goes like this...

A lady had been to her solicitor to finalise moving in to a new home. After the solicitor, the lady went to a large department store in Sydney to order new furniture for the new home. Before heading home, she went to the toilet in the store, and a hand came under the cubicle wall and snatched her handbag, containing keys and legal papers for the new house and receipts for the new furniture. She reported the theft of her bag to the store, who of course offered to contact her if they found her bag. A couple of weeks later, the store called to say that her bag had been found, and organised time for her to pick it up. When the lady arrived at the store, nobody knew anything about her handbag, on returning home, the new house had been cleared of all the new furniture... [Eek!]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I quite like the idea that if you're ever given the freedom of your city (i.e. become a freeman or freewoman) you're allowed to drive sheep through the streets, you get free parking and don't have to pay any council tax.*

It probably also exempts males over the age of 16 from having to practise archery on Sundays, too.

* If only all this were true.

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Scarlet:
Oh, please! The moon landings were staged at Area 51.

sound studio in Burbank!

And earthquakes in Central America are caused by the CIA....

quote:
Originally posted by Scarlet:
There's a great movie from the early '90's: Sneakers that has Dan Aykroyd as a conspiracy obsessed but otherwise brilliant technician. I think this was covered in that movie (along with cattle mutilations)...

Wish I still had a copy.

Best. Movie. Ever.

all time favorite. I have two copies.

Posted by Pure Sunshine (# 11904) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I quite like the idea that if you're ever given the freedom of your city (i.e. become a freeman or freewoman) you're allowed to drive sheep through the streets, you get free parking and don't have to pay any council tax.*

It probably also exempts males over the age of 16 from having to practise archery on Sundays, too.

* If only all this were true.

It would seem not. Although you do get a free pint in the Leaky Cauldron and a ten Galleon voucher to spend in Diagon Alley, apparently. [Biased]

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

You do, though, have to be a Freeman to stand for election to the Corporation of the City of London.

Posted by Polly Plummer (# 13354) on :

And if you're a Freeman you are allowed to drive your sheep over London Bridge, which can be very useful.

Posted by Spike (# 36) on :

It's a well known fact (a fact I tell you) that all the major car manufacturers have designed engines that can run on water, but the oil companies are paying them millions (yes, millions I say) to keep it under wraps so they don't go out of business.

That's true that is.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

All American lawyers are British subjects. An American once told me this on an airplane(he obviously thought it was a bad thing). He also tried to interest me in some pyramid scheme which sold products designed to ward off the harmful effects of power-lines over houses.

For some time, I figured the thing about lawyers might have a kernel of truth to it, maybe American lawyers have to swear an archaic oath to the Queen or something, like doctors used to swear an oath to Apollo. But checking the internet a few months back, I realized he was probably just repeating this rumour, which is obviously not very credible.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Spike:
It's a well known fact (a fact I tell you) that all the major car manufacturers have designed engines that can run on water, but the oil companies are paying them millions (yes, millions I say) to keep it under wraps so they don't go out of business.

That's true that is.

Yes, but you forgot the bit about the magic pill-thing that has to go into the tank to transform the water. That's what makes it all so credible.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Polly Plummer:
And if you're a Freeman you are allowed to drive your sheep over London Bridge, which can be very useful.

Since the bridge was shipped out to Lake Havasu City it's been of rather less use.

Talking of that bridge, the story that whoever bought that bridge thought they were buying Tower Bridge is still very popular, especially among London cabbies and tourists.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Polly Plummer:
And if you're a Freeman you are allowed to drive your sheep over London Bridge, which can be very useful.
Since the bridge was shipped out to Lake Havasu City it's been of rather less use.

Talking of that bridge, the story that whoever bought that bridge thought they were buying Tower Bridge is still very popular, especially among London cabbies and tourists.

And among Arizonans!

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

I like this one, simply because its so icky.

A girl in her NY two floored fancy apartment holds a mad party and invites all her friends and a few gatecrashers come along for the ride.One gatecrasher at the party is a little forward and a tiny bit tmi regarding his foot fetish, but she manages to give him the shake and doesn't notice him for the rest of the night. Some of the other gatecrashers are unpleasantly drunk and there are a couple of nerds she would have rather avoided, but on the whole its all good. Everybody loves her swanky apartment and her cute little doggy. At the end of the night she's a little drunk and stumbles upstairs and falls into bed. Just before sleep takes her, she calls out for her little dog. There is silence for a moment, but then in the dark she hears the dog coming. She lets her hand dangle over the edge of the bed and the dog licks her fingers and nudges her a little and just before she falls asleep the dog licks her toes and makes her giggle and then she goes to rest.

In the morning she decides she needs a really nice hot bath and a soak for an hour or two, so she fills the bath and leaves the bathroom door ajar so there isn't too much steam. She heads downstairs to where the living room is and survey's the mess and she enters the kitchen to see how much washing up needs doing, but notices a bloodstain near the bin. She approaches the bin and opens it and there is the severed head of her little doggy. She screams and runs upstairs to grab the phone - unsure of whether to call the police or a friend, but as she picks up the phone she notices through the half open door of the bathroom that on the mirror someone has traced out a sentence with a finger.....'People can lick too.'

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

This one I've been assured is true, but I have my doubts.

The story is comes from a group of young people flat-sharing in New York. New York gets very cold in winter. One of the guys who has gone out drinking one night manages to get locked out and falls asleep on the doorstep, still clutching the beer can he'd rolled home with. Next morning another flatmate finds him on the doorstep with the can frozen to his hand. The can of course had to go, so it was removed, taking all the guy's fingers with it. It was told as an object lesson in dealing with frostbite and getting cold.

And as an aside, I heard someone telling the story about London Bridge yesterday as I walked along the South Bank

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Talking of that bridge, the story that whoever bought that bridge thought they were buying Tower Bridge is still very popular, especially among London cabbies and tourists.

You mean you haven't heard that they've got it right this time?

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Talking of that bridge, the story that whoever bought that bridge thought they were buying Tower Bridge is still very popular, especially among London cabbies and tourists.
You mean you haven't heard that they've got it right this time?

1st April 2010?
[Killing me]

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

A mother of a few kids I went to primary school with had one arm. It was generally not known how she lost the arm, but the preferred story among the kids was that she was working at a Taco Bell restaurant, and her arm got caught in the meat grinder. My mother actually believed that one for years until she realized that they don't actually grind their own meat on sight at Taco Bell.

My driver's education teacher was a firm believer in the oil companies depriving us of high efficiency motors story, but his theory was that it had something to do with the carburetor.

I spent several summers as a tour guide at a silver mine, and one of our co-workers (may he rest in peace [Votive]

) was infamous for coming up with fabulous new whoppers every day. Among his greatest hits were the "hanging three" (the tree on sight where anyone caught stealing ore was immediately hung), the theory that Aspen trees are, in fact, a kind of fungus, and a story about how the small mountain town where the tour took place was actually still technically part of the Kansas Territory.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

A bit like those churches in South London which use to belong to Canterbury Diocese even though they were surrounded by parishes in Southwark!Not an urban myth - true but now resolved.

Also not an urban myth: a (prefabricated) police station in Mill Hill, North London which was put up back to front, so that the main entrance did not lead to the reception desk but the gentlemen's loos.

What about the story of the pilot on Scottish air services in the 1950's who, allegedly, used to put the plane on autopilot and come into the cabin unwinding a ball of string as he went. This he would give to an old lady, saying, "Hold this tightly, you're flying the plane now" while he went to the toilet. On his return he would take the ball of string from the terrified lady, wind it all up and return to the cockpit.

And is it true that Isambard Kingdom Brunel deliberately designed Box Tunnel so that the sun would only shine through it on the morning of his birthday?

[ 06. September 2012, 17:41: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Kyzyl (# 374) on :

I had a student who was convinced that Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their name to KFC because the genetically modified chicken they used was so mutated that it could no longer legally be called chicken.

[ 06. September 2012, 17:53: Message edited by: Kyzyl ]

Posted by Oferyas (# 14031) on :

I wish this was true....

Apparently police on roadside radar speed traps are warned that on no account should the radar gun be used on any other target than a road vehicle. A couple of policemen were out on speed trap duty: bored after a couple of hours of no arrests, one of them decided to scan the speed of a low flying RAF jet coming over. Bad move: this jet happened to be equipped with armed missiles and active systems for a live firing exercise.

The onboard anti-threat radar detected the scan of the police radar gun and the computer decided it was hostile. The 'threat' was neutralised by an air to ground missile, leaving two policemen having to explain to their boss why they had to walk back at the end of their shift, because their car was now a burned-out wreck on the roadside.....

Come on, you wish it was true as well! [Devil]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

From the Falkland Islands comes another decidedly un-urban myth concerning penguins.

There's not a lot of fun to be had for the aircrew based there so RAF crews would fly, quite slowly, towards massed penguins on the beaches.. The penguins would look at the 'plane mesmerised and continue doing so, eventually toppling over backwards en masse.

Even the Audubon Society was fooled (though they deny it too).

Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :

I'm not sure what my favourite is, but the one of the most resistent to eradication is the lost day in time. I've even heard a sermon based on it. [Eek!]

Mind you, that was many years ago before the internet days. At the time it rang false to me, but being a GLE I didn't have the nerve to tell the preacher afterwards that I thought it was not at all credible. Having now come under the influence of the Ship, I doubt that I would be so reticent today.

Posted by Loquacious beachcomber (# 8783) on :

The urban legend probably most likely to be used as a sermon illutration is Dr. Fleming saving Winston Churchill from a swamp when he and Winnie were but wee lads, Churchill's grateful father then paying for Fleming's education, and Fleming saving Churchill's life a second time by inventing penicillan. So much you can teach from that most lovely fib!

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

quote:
Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
I'm not sure what my favourite is, but the one of the most resistent to eradication is the lost day in time. I've even heard a sermon based on it.

I get so angry when one of these makes it into a sermon. I know I can't say that I've detected very urban legend that has ever run past me, but I can say that every time I've thought "hang on ..." and done a bit of checking, I've been right. I'm not that clever so why is it so hard for others?

The Neil Armstrong / Mr Gorsky one is my particular peeve. Our vicar used it the other day, and told me he got it from a book of sermon illustrations so he presumed it had been checked.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:

quote:
Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
I'm not sure what my favourite is, but the one of the most resistent to eradication is the lost day in time. I've even heard a sermon based on it.
I get so angry when one of these makes it into a sermon. I know I can't say that I've detected very urban legend that has ever run past me, but I can say that every time I've thought "hang on ..." and done a bit of checking, I've been right. I'm not that clever so why is it so hard for others?

The Neil Armstrong / Mr Gorsky one is my particular peeve. Our vicar used it the other day, and told me he got it from a book of sermon illustrations so he presumed it had been checked.

It's particularly vexing when the preacher uses one of those tired chestnuts (I heard the old "I know the right answer is 'Jesus' but it sure sounds like a squirrel..." recently) as if it had happened to them personally.

The urban legend I was most disappointed to learn was untrue was the one re: the King of Denmark wearing the star of David during Nazi occupation, causing all Danes to wear it & rendering the symbol unusable (even saw it here on the Ship recently).

Posted by M. (# 3291) on :

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
(I heard the old "I know the right answer is 'Jesus' but it sure sounds like a squirrel..." recently)

I'ver only ever heard that as a silly story, I don't think I've ever heard it used in a context where the listeners were expected to believe it really happened.

M.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
The Neil Armstrong / Mr Gorsky one is my particular peeve. Our vicar used it the other day, and told me he got it from a book of sermon illustrations so he presumed it had been checked.

Considering what Mr. Gorsky was supposedly promised, it's hard to imagine this in a book of sermon illustrations or an actual sermon!
[Eek!]

Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :

A TEC church where I was once Organist-Choirmaster had a visiting preacher for the Christmas Eve mass (it's a long story).

He wasn't exactly the brightest bulb on the Christmas Tree, and told as truth the baseless fib about 'The 12 Days of Christmas' being IIRC a Jesuit invention to teach the faith in Elizabethan/Jacobean times.

I was snorting and grumbling so loudly that my choristers feared I was having some sort of attack!

(I had heard the tale years before from a rather dotty parishionr, who 'proved' it by saying 'My husband told me this, and he's a lawyer.')

And almost every year I hear it from some amazed and gullible church folk.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

Georgiaboy's story reminds me of the one where "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is supposed to be about persecution of nonconformists (or, a the people telling the tale would more likely say, "true Christians"), where "rest" supposedly meant "keep" and "merry" meant "strong." A friend of mine posted it on facebook a few years ago, and when I supplied a link to a page debunking it, she just deleted my posts.

And I, too, had only heard the Sunday School / squirrel story told as a joke, never presented as real.

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
The moon landings never really happened. They were instead filmed on a large lump of cheese (or some other mysterious location).

Recently I saw a comment on some facebook post or other (probably surrounding Neil Armstrong's death) by someone claiming the moon landing was fake, and his "proof" was the scripture where Jesus said "no one has ascended into heaven" except him. [Killing me]

Posted by The Rogue (# 2275) on :

My favourite urban myth is that the Ship isn't a Christian Website....

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