Famous urban legends

[Yeti]

oh your girlfriend says its true? oh wow, i guess snopes must be wrong.

[blainestar]

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just edited your post a bit if thats ok, it was longggg.

my fav. is the common misbelief that water in the southern hemisphere spirals down the drain the opposite direction than in the north.

http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp

definitely a 'wtf' moment when you realise you were sold a complete lie as a little kid.

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well, my gf went to Australia, and she swears its true

now i'm confused

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Not sure how credible this is, but........
http://web.bryant.edu/~science/acade...oiletwater.htm

[Fishmonger]

That snuff movies are a myth was one that surprised me.

[morphball]

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That snuff movies are a myth was one that surprised me.

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??? Isn't there a website or two out there where you can see stuff like the Iraqi beheadings?

[Fishmonger]

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That snuff movies are a myth was one that surprised me.

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??? Isn't there a website or two out there where you can see stuff like the Iraqi beheadings?

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Apparently that kind of thing doesn't qualify on the basis that it's politically motivated and not for entertainment.

[Gary The Retard]

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I read a story on the Internet about a cave, and how these guys expand a small hole, go through the hole, and strange things happen. I don't remember where it is, but I thought it was at least a compelling read, and it was long (by Internet standards).

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I've read this as well. It was actually a pretty interesting story. Wish I could find it again but the original link is dead now. There is this, which I think the story we've both read is based on. It's a good read.

There's a couple of other I have a hazy memory of that have this sort of internet provenance. The first is about some sort of supernatural ritual involving holding a mirror underwater and staring into it for a certain amount of time, the end result being that some sort of spirit from another dimension 'adopts' you and never leaves you alone ever again.

Secondly, there's one about a disused Mental Asylum known locally as the gates of hell - there are 7 gates and no one has ever got any further than the 4th without having to turn back. This one's been investigated and they found the location on which it was based (they think.) It got pulled down by the local authority to stop kids tooling around in the area.

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good story, i bet it'd make a good horror movie or who knows maybe its already been done.

[KurtSF]

Two of them.

Some guys is looking through the classified for a new car, comes across an ad for a recent Porsche 911 for $50! Now he wasn't looking for a sports car, and he's sure its a typo, but figures what the heck. he calls the number and get a friendly lady on the other end, and she confirms that the car is indeed only $50. Without asking a question he rushed over to her house, give her $50, and they sign a contract. Before the ink is dry, he asks her "You have to know this car is worth more than $50, right?" She says "Oh yeah, I know. My husband ran off to Tahiti with his mistress and sent me a note asking to sell his Porsche and send the money for them to live on." [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

And then there's the Darwin Award about the guy who falls down the well. They send someone down after him, but the air is bad down there so he dies, so someone goes down for the two of them but he dies, etc., etc. until the body count is at seven and they finally give up.

I figured that one had to be false until a bartender in upstate New York told me his father and 3 brothers back in some Central American country died in just such a fashion. I don't think he was joking.

[CORed]

I think most toilets are designed so that the water rotates in a particular direction. If you watch a sink or bathtub drain, however, you will see that the vortex can rotate in either direction, with the movement of water in the sink or tub before you pull the plug determining which direction. You can even force the direction to reverse by moving your hand through the water like an oar so that it generates a vortex, and causing that vortex to move over the drain.

Yes, I spent way too much time playing in the bathtub when I was a kid.

[CORed]

When I took a class in confined space entry many years ago, they cited several horror stories involving tanks, sewer manholes, et cetera where somebody collapsed in bad air (toxic gas, insufficient oxygen, or whatever) and multiple people went in and died trying to rescue them. It seems to be almost instinctive to rush in to help somebody that's in trouble. I can understand the first person going in to attempt rescue, and maybe even the second, but you'd think that by the time somebody had seen four or five people go in and not come out, they'd figure out it wasn't such a good idea.

[Losing all]

The Rod Stewart thing must be true! but it was dog spunk.

There sure was a lot of panic about razor/poison candy in metro Detroit when I was a kid. I'm positive I saw a dude with a split lip on the news from a razor hot dog. I guess maybe he did it?