We’re back with one of our most popular features. Remember the rule of thumb for an urban legend: if a wild story sounds a bit too “perfect” to be true, then it probably isn’t.
THE LEGEND: A young woman who lives near a beach becomes pregnant but swears it’s a mistake. It turns out that she accidentally swallowed microscopic octopus eggs while swimming and has a baby octopus growing inside her, spreading its tentacles to various parts of her body.
HOW IT SPREAD: The story was first published in the Boston Traveler in the 1940s and is kept alive mainly in coastal towns.
THE TRUTH: No medical records have ever been found to verify this story, but the universal fear of foreign bodies growing inside us keeps it afloat. Similar legends exist about eating pregnant cockroaches in fast food.
THE LEGEND: The Chevy Nova had dismal sales in Latin American countries because in Spanish the word Nova sounds like no va, which translates to “doesn’t go.”
HOW IT SPREAD: It began circulating in business manuals and seminars in the 1980s warning of the follies of failing to do adequate market research before releasing products in foreign markets. It spread from there to newspaper columnists. (Even Uncle John was duped—we included it in The Best of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.)
THE TRUTH: When Chevrolet first released the Nova in Mexico, Venezuela, and other Spanish-speaking countries in 1972, the car sold just fine, even better than expected in Venezuela. According to www.snopes.com’s Urban Legends page, the very nature of the tale is absurd:
Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word “Nova” as equivalent to the phrase “no va” and think, “Hey, this car doesn’t go!” is akin to assuming that English speakers would spurn a dinette set sold under the name “Notable” because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn’t include a table.
Even “clean” air may contain as many as 1,500 specks of dust per cubic inch.
THE LEGEND: Teenagers drive around looking for open car windows at red traffic lights, yell, “Spunkball!” and throw a gasoline-soaked rag with a lit firecracker connected to it, hoping to start a fire inside the vehicle.
HOW IT SPREAD: Via e-mail, beginning in February 2000.
THE TRUTH: This is another variation on a common urban legend—the “gang initiation” legend. (Like the one about someone who flashed a friendly warning at an oncoming car without lights, only to be shot dead by recently-initiated gang members.) No police reports or news items exist to substantiate either legend. The “spunkball” e-mail looked even more credible when the name Bea Maggio, FCLS, Allstate Insurance Co., began appearing underneath it. After reading it, she supposedly passed it along to some friends—not in a company capacity—but just as a regular concerned (and duped) citizen. Her name stuck with the e-mail, giving it an “official” look, but have no fear, there’s nothing official about it.
THE LEGEND: Walt Disney’s body was cryogenically stored after he died in 1966, with instructions to reanimate him when the technology is available. He’s supposedly stored underneath “The Pirates of the Caribbean” ride at Disneyland.
HOW IT SPREAD: The story began in the early 1970s, but who started it remains unknown. Disney’s slow decline in health, his family-only funeral, and the fact that the public was not notified of his death until after he was buried all added fuel to the legend. It was given new life when it was reported in two unauthorized—and widely discredited—Disney biographies that were published in the late 1980s.
THE TRUTH: No documented evidence exists anywhere claiming this to be true. Disney’s daughter Diane said in 1972, “There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt that my father had ever heard of cryonics.” He wasn’t frozen; in fact, he was cremated and buried in the Forest Hills cemetery in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles. Disney’s very private life, along with his cult status, has put him in the same league with Elvis and Marilyn as a target for urban legends.
In 1990 the U.S. government tested 29,000 federal employees for drugs. Cost: $11.7 million. Positive tests: 153. Cost per positive test: $76,470.