Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with urbanlegend

Now I've got to know what was that bus-dude's crime

memebake — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:18:06 -0800

Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree is pretty unusual, in that its a romantic song about a recently released convict. It seems to be based on an urban legend, or possibly true story (see the wikipedia link). So my question is: Can we work out what the dude was in prison for? Clues:
-He was in prison for 3 years.
-Some of the stories the song is based on take place in Georgia

Given that there was a court case about the origins of the story, perhaps the information is documented somewhere.

A priest and his own stolen plates. Folklore?

leticia — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:05:54 -0800

Have heard a story told to me as a "true" story that someone supposedly has personal knowledge of, but I could swear I've heard this before, either as urban legend, or maybe from the plot of a movie or book. Does anyone recognize this story? It's been a while since I heard the story, but here it is in broad strokes:

A good-hearted priest goes to work in a poor community. Everyone tells him to beware of this community because they are beggars and thieves, but he brushes off the warnings, and goes ahead to work with them and live among them. He embraces them and does not judge them harshly, and treats them very well. One day the community decide to have a party for him, to thank him for all the good and kind things he's done for them. He goes to the party, and they serve him a cake they have made in his honor, but they serve the cake to him on his own plates -- which they have stolen from him.

When this was told to me, it just felt so familiar. I am almost sure this is either something from a story or fable, or just an urban legend that might be told about any looked-down-upon community in any culture. However, I don't have the first idea how I could possibly search for this online.

Does this story sound at all familiar to anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Did this really happen? Have you heard a version of the story?

idiopath — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:55:42 -0800

Help me find out more about this urban legend. I was at a restaurant alone, and overheard someone telling this story to her friend. I want to know about other versions you may have heard, and whether it is based on a real event. Here is the story:

A group of kids goes out to the woods to find 'shrooms. They proceed to find some 'shrooms and start tripping in the woods. One of the kids disappears for a while, and the others try to find him. Eventually he leads them to a magical gnome, who talks in a weird gnome language. They all hang out with the gnome for a while, and then it is getting dark so they decide to drive back home, but they decide to take the gnome with them. As they start to sober up they realize the gnome is still there, and freak out. Eventually they realize that it is a toddler with downs syndrome, and they bring the child to the authorities, who figure out that it had been intentionally abandoned by its parents.

I heard a second variation recently, where the detail about downs syndrome was not included, and there was an added detail about the kids being celebrated as heroes. Have you heard a version of this, what variations? What part of what country? I heard the story in Portland, Oregon, USA, my friend heard the story in Olympia, Washington, USA.

Oodles of noodles

dosterm — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 07:41:36 -0800

How many noodles are in a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup? OK, my team won trivia night last night, but we got the above question wrong. That is to say: we had no earthly idea and instead used a mulligan.

My question is twofold.

First, is this just nonsense? Can anyone confirm the number of noodles? (I'll keep that secret for now.)

Second, what bizarrely dehumanizing manufacturing process from the future would lead to the same number of noodles each time? We theorized a precise measurement of weight, or a more linear packaging process than scooping soup would seem to imply.

I should obviously contact Campbell's corporate (and I still might), but we're more fun. Thanks all!

Bowlers in Bolivia and Peru

tellurian — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:30:01 -0800

There are two different stories about how bowler hats came to Bolivia and Peru. I'm looking for some original sources for the stories that bowler hats are "worn by Quechua and Aymara women in Peru and Bolivia since the 1920's when supposedly a shipment of bowler hats was sent from Europe to Bolivia via Peru for use by Europeans who were working on the construction of the railroad. The hats were found to be too small and were distributed to locals." -OR- It is a result of an over-order and an enterprising salesman who supposedly convinced them that the wearing of the hats would increase their fertility.

It happened to this one lady one time

Countess Elena — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:57:50 -0800

Theory: Cancerous skin cells from your lips, when aspirated, can give you lung cancer. This was propounded to me by a nice lady doing free "mini-facials" at the mall. She informed me that SPF protection for the lips was most important, because you could breathe in your cancerous lip-skin cells and develop lung cancer. A woman who never smoked a day in her life had had this happen to her. I didn't feel like arguing, because lip protection is important and besides the treatment felt nice, but I wanted to say: oh come on, cancer does not work that way.

Then I realized I didn't have any basis for that. Is it theoretically possible? Cancer can metastasize throughout the body, after all. And dead malignant cells certainly sound carcinogenic. Still, it comes off as a foaftale. (Especially since she also told me that you need SPF protection from your computer screen as well, and that a woman who didn't spend much time outside got skin cancer for just this reason.)

Is Laura Bush a smoker or what?

Mister_A — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:29:00 -0800

Does Laura Bush really smoke cigarettes? Did she ever? Did she quit then start again? Evidence please. I need to win, or at least start, a bar argument.

The Lost Lockerbie Gospel

RandlePatrickMcMurphy — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:36:48 -0800

One dark and stormy Sunday morning, I heard a gospel song about a woman in the Lockerbie plane crash on the radio... I never thought I'd be posting a songfilter question, but this has been bugging me for too long. Sometime around 1995 I was driving through Ohio in the middle of a tremendous rainstorm and listening to a gospel radio station.

The "song" that I remember was about a young woman who was the first in her family to go to college and then go to medical school on the East Coast and after medical school she got a prestigious job at a hospital in New York, and was about to get married, but before she started this job, she decided to take a vacation in Europe. All of this is sung in classic call-and-response, with many praise the lord's from the congregation. And her family goes to JFK to meet her as she returns home to the United States, but airline officials take the family aside and tell them that they have terrible news - there was a bomb on the plane and it has gone down with no survivors. The family is crushed and the congregation together with the preacher cry out in pain and sadness at the loss of their daughter, but they pray and pray and when they get home there's a message on the answering machine - she missed the plane and she's coming home on the next flight. The family (and the congregation) rejoices and hallelujahs. I'd say all this took at least 30 minutes to tell/sing.

Listening to this at the time I had to pull over because I was starting to cry and I still get a little teary-eyed just writing it down.

Question: Does this exist as a recording somewhere? Was it just a sermon being broadcast on the radio? Is it an urban legend put to music and prayer?

New credit card scam?

Listener — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 19:41:52 -0800

Device to steal numbers from your cards in your pocket? A store clerk just mentioned to me that there's a new credit card scam where "they" can read your card numbers with a device, while the cards are in your pocket. I think she is mistaken or this is a nouveau urban legend. Can anyone confirm her claim?

Are the NFL schedules set by a "little old lady in flyover country"?

llamateur — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:58:15 -0800

NFL Urban Legend: Is it true that the NFL schedules are set by a "little old lady in flyover country"? Back in college (early '90s) my friend who knew a lot about sports (and was in fact an aspiring sportscaster) used to swear that the NFL schedules are set each year by "some little old lady in flyover country." She is told which teams need to play each other, and other things about the way games need to occur (e.g. the Giants and Jets can't play home games on the same Sunday), but beyond that, she sets the match-ups.

The idea was that because she was just some old lady with no connections to any of the teams, that she would be incorruptible.

I distinctly remember discovering somewhere along the way that this preposterous story turned out to be true and that we were all obliged to apologize to the guy.

But now, here we are almost 20 years later and I can't find any evidence that this story is true now, nor ever was true.

Has anyone ever heard this before?

Blinded by the light or by an urban legend

Xalf — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:29:47 -0800

Was there ever a plan for a public art project which would placed a giant rearview mirror next to Chicago's Lake Shore Drive? I have a vague memory of hearing years ago that this was planned before someone pointed out that at the right time of day the sun's reflection in the mirror would blind everyone for miles around. Sounds pretty urban legendish, but thought I'd ask.

Does massage release toxins?

pornucopia — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 17:02:02 -0800

My massage therapist always tells me "drink lots of water to get rid of the toxins released during the massage". Does anyone know of any evidence to support this claim? Any sites that debunk it?

Out of the Office Paranoia

TheDonF — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:07:54 -0800

[OutOfOfficeParanoiaFilter] I am planning a holiday soon and, over a conversation, a friend gave me a cautionary note about not leaving an out of office autoreply on my mail account as it greatly increased the chance of me being burgled. [+] So I Googled on the subject and found that this seems to have emanated from a December 2002 press release by the Corporate IT Forum (tif.). The whole thing sounds incredibly specious, more like something a company would put out to raise awareness of themselves than anything else. Snopes have an article on the subject and have debunked it, Access Control and Security Systems have it listed as an urban legend, but my friend is insistent that this thing is real - apparently her company also believes this and won't let any external emails be auto-replied to, which seems crazy.

Fellow MeFites, are you aware of any cases where people have been burgled because of an OOO auto-reply? Can I rest easy when I'm away or should I build 20 feet-deep electrified moat around my property? How do you handle your email when away for a week or two?