David Emery's Urban Legends Blog

The outfit responsible for last Friday's press conference promising scientific proof that Bigfoot exists has admitted the whole thing was a hoax.

According to SearchingforBigfoot.com impresario Tom Biscardi, the two men who approached him last month claiming they possessed the frozen carcass of a 7-foot-tall ape-like thingamajiggy from the backwoods of Georgia were frauds. Investigators thawed the hairy corpse over the weekend and determined it to be, as many had suspected, a Halloween costume. Confronted with the ruse, the perpetrators skipped town with an undisclosed sum Biscardi had given them as an advance on marketing and promotional revenues.

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A chain email circulating since the end of June asks for prayers for Katie Fitch, a 3-year-old girl in South Carolina suffering from hepatoblastoma, a form a liver cancer primarily found in young children. At last report, her tumor was shrinking thanks to aggressive chemotherapy, though the family also attributes Katie's progress to the prayers of online strangers. Read more...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bigfoot on Ice.

According to a press release issued yesterday by Searching for Bigfoot Inc., the 7-foot, 7-inch-tall corpse of an ape-like creature found in northern Georgia "may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as 'Bigfoot'." Unceremoniously preserved in a freezer chest, the hairy carcass weighs an estimated 500 pounds. Its footprint measures 16 3/4 inches long. It appears to be part-ape and part-human. A press conference will be held on Friday, August 15 to unveil further details of the discovery (see update below).

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A 10-inch-tall garden gnome missing and believed stolen since last September turned up on the doorstep of its owners in Gloucestershire, England last week, along with a photo album chronicling its "travels" in 12 foreign countries. Eve and Derrick Stuart-Kelso seemed pleased to have their errant lawn ornament home again, though Eve admitted to reporters that she had forgotten in the interval that the plaster leprechaun known to the family as "Murphy" even existed.

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I am told that the Chinese government chose 8:08:08 p.m. on 8/8/08 as the time and date of the Olympic Games opening ceremonies because eight is considered a lucky number in China. That's apparently because "ba," the word for "eight" in Mandarin, sounds so much like "fa," the word for "wealth" or "prosper." Needless to say, gold medal expectations are high.

Also, a great many Chinese couples have reportedly planned their weddings for the auspicious day, and some married couples even went to the trouble of timing the conception of their babies in hopes of scoring an 8/8/08 birthday.

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According to this email flier, the answer is yes. Because if you don't, the next customer may be able to "piggyback" on your transaction, meaning you'll be charged for their gas too.

Is there anything to it? Read more...

The Net is awash in angry emails criticizing Tyson Foods' decision to replace the Labor Day holiday with a paid day off honoring the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr at its plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee. This is not a hoax. Tyson blames the change on union demands, but irate Americans from coast to coast are advocating a boycott to hold the company accountable for what they see as religious favoritism.

Update: In response to the public outcry, the union representing Tyson's Shelbyville workers voted on Thursday, August 7 to overturn the controversial contract and reinstate Labor Day as a paid holiday for all employees. Read more...

UPDATED: Although rumors declaring comedian Bernie Mac dead last week proved to be false at the time -- he was in the hospital under treatment for pneumonia, a spokesperson said -- he died on Saturday, August 9, 2008 of complications due to the disease. Bernie Mac was 50 years old.

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Via The Dish Rag: Heath Ledger died of an overdose. Special effects technician Conway Wickliffe died in a stunt-car crash. Christian Bale was arrested on assault charges just before the movie opened. And now Morgan Freeman has been hospitalized for serious injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

Is there a curse on the actors and crew who worked on The Dark Knight?   Discuss...

Related:
• The Superman Curse - Urban Legends
• Are Some Movie Sets Really Cursed? - MTV
• Famous Movie Curses - CanWest News Service

Not only does Barack Obama refuse to salute the flag, Internet rumormongers inform us, but he also took the "disgraceful" measure of replacing it on the tail of his Boeing 757 campaign jet with an "Obama '08" logo.

"What American running for President of the United States would remove the symbol of his country?" this forwarded email asks.

It's a rhetorical question...