Something smells fishy

Published on Saturday 13 December 2008 18:48

From Elvis sightings to 9/11 scare stories, urban myths have always been irresistible

WE'VE all done it haven't we – passed on a bizarre anecdote involving our hairdresser's sister-in-law's babysitter – despite a lack of corroborating evidence or any credible source? Perhaps it was a horror story – like the one about the girl who, left alone in a car on lover's lane for a few minutes as her boyfriend goes out to relieve himself in the bushes – hears a banging on the roof and, drives off, only to find, on arriving home, that the noise was caused by his decapitated head bouncing up and down on the roof. Or perhaps it was a cautionary tale aimed at keeping your children's behaviour in check: such as the one about how swimming pools contain a special chemical which creates a big red ring around anyone who urinates in the water.

But whatever it was we just couldn't resist passing it on. That's the thing about urban myths: they are utterly compelling, and so they're passed on from mouth to mouth, or from computer terminal to computer terminal, in an almost frenzied fashion, until they become accepted as fact.

Last week, it was the north-east of Scotland's turn to produce an urban legend. For several days, the area was gripped by a rumour that pop star and convicted paedophile Gary Glitter – who was recently deported from Vietnam – was staying at the Findhorn Foundation, a new age spiritual community. Suddenly, Glitter was being spotted across the North-east, from the Asda cafe in Elgin, where he was said to be tucking into egg and chips, to the streets of Forres.

Sightings of the sex offender began to outnumber sightings of Elvis, until the authorities were forced to reassure the local community, he was not, in fact, in the area.

The hysteria provoked by Glitter's supposed relocation to Moray was similar to the reaction to rumours in 2004 that Soham murderer Ian Huntley's ex-girlfriend Maxine Carr was living in East Kilbride. As speculation turned to conviction, a mob of vigilantes gathered outside the home of an innocent lookalike and shoved abusive mail through her letterbox.

For the most part, contemporary myths are not harmful. But they do hold a mirror up to our culture, giving us an often unflattering reflection of our preoccupations and prejudices. Sometimes they involve faceless strangers who lurk in the shadows waiting to harm us.

Two communities in the US – Botecourt County, Virginia, in the early 1930s, and Mattoon, Illinois in the mid-40s – were terrorised by a "mad gasser", who was said to creep into people's houses and release toxic fumes. As fear paralysed the neighbourhoods, dozens of people claimed to have been affected, but the authorities were convinced the episodes were a combination of hoaxes and terrified residents over-reacting to common – if unpleasant – odours.

And in 2002, there were reports that a mysterious creature was terrorising people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Apparently the creature – known as "muchnochwa" or "face-scratcher" – would emerge from the dark and brutally scratch its victims, leaving them bleeding and traumatised.

"Urban legends reflect our fears and what does it appear we are afraid of?" asks Dr Mikel Koven, of Worcester University, an expert in folklore. "The handicapped (a variation of the decapitated head myth involves an attacker with a hook which gets lodged in the car door), foreigners and women who step outside a highly patriarchal society. Outsiders – that's who we regard as monsters."

Certainly many urban legends seem to reveal our intolerance of difference. Take the one about the foreign restaurants with dog, cat or horsemeat on the menu. Similar stories have surfaced all over the world, but a couple of years ago, the rumour that Jimmy Chung's restaurant in Dundee was serving seagull affected trade so adversely the restaurant was forced to issue a formal denial.

Then there's the American one about the hippy babysitter who, while high on acid, stuffs and cooks the turkey for Thanksgiving – except that there is no turkey.

One of the most widespread urban myths involves the foreign tourist who goes out for a drink and wakes up in an iced bath with a slash across his abdomen. A note left next to the bath reads: "Thank you for your kidney."

Although this story has been circulating for decades, its heyday came in the Nineties, when an e-mail headed "Travellers Beware" suggested gangs of organ thieves were targeting business travellers in major US cities. As part of the effort to dispel the myth, the National Kidney Foundation asked anyone who had experienced this to come forward, and no one did.

Major tragedies, such as 9/11, make us particularly susceptible to urban myths, perhaps because the seemingly impossible has already unfolded in front of our eyes.

One of the most common post-9/11 stories involved the shopper who, noticing a Muslim man dropping his wallet, picks it up and hands it back to him. "Thank you," the Muslim says. "And now I am going to return the favour. Do not go to Braehead/Silverburn/Princes Street in the week before Christmas." This anecdote gained such currency in Inverness in 2006, that Northern Constabulary Police had to reassure the public shopping arcades such as the Eastgate Centre were safe.

Koven, who is a member of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR), says urban legends are not about truth or falsehood, but possibility. "When you hear a story and for a split second – before the doubt sets in – you believe it might be true; when for a brief moment you suspend your disbelief, that is when the myth is born," he says.

Dr Jan Harold Brunvand, the world's leading authority on urban legends, believes most of them evolved as people discussing their concerns mixed bits of fantasy with real incidents. "I also think the 'what if?' principle plays a part," he says. "What if someone put a small animal into a microwave oven or what if someone's grandmother died while a family was driving somewhere on vacation?"

Perhaps it is this "what if" element that makes urban myths so appealing to children. Most of us can recollect stories that frightened and thrilled us in equal measure. Remember the one about the children's stickers laced with LSD, the razors left on swimming pool slides and – one of Koven's favourites – the prospect of your stomach exploding if you drank Coke while eating space dust.

"What I remember most vividly was that a child called Mikey, who starred in the adverts for Life cereals, was supposed to have died from mixing the two even though he was alive and well," says Koven.

The tale about the maths Higher which was so hard pupils all over Scotland staged a walk-out played on another major childhood fear: that of failure.

Pupils and even teachers were said to have been reduced to tears by the very sight of the examination in 2000, although the SQA strenuously denied there had been any protest and the pass rate was said to be slightly up on the year before.

Adult urban myths deal with adult preoccupations, including, increasingly, our suspicion of authority. There are those, for example, who are convinced traffic police play "speed snooker", targeting particular colours of car in a particular order, but interspersing each with a red one. This, they insist, explains why drivers of red cars are more likely to receive a fine or prosecution than others.

Some common misconceptions – the Red Road flats are the highest in Europe; that deep-fried Mars Bar originated in Glasgow – are just errors which have become legitimised through repetition. But real urban myths involve compelling story lines which serve to teach us a lesson: keep an eye on your kids; don't pick up hitch-hikers; don't always trust the authorities to act in your interest.

And it is not just individuals who are seduced by them either. In South Korea, the claim that leaving a fan on in your bedroom while you sleep causes dehydration and death was swallowed hook, line and sinker by the country's Consumer Safety Board, which – despite a complete lack of scientific evidence – listed "asphyxiation from electric fans and air conditioners" as one of the top five summer hazards in 2005.

The biggest change to the way in which urban myths develop has, of course, been the internet, which allows such stories to be passed further afield, more quickly. But the worldwide web also has its disadvantages, transforming the communication of the stories from a creative process – in which the original tale might be embellished with every telling – to the passing on of a standard text at the press of a button.

The internet has also been used to demonstrate the extent of our gullibility. The "fact" that every year we swallow eight spiders while sleeping was invented in 1993 by Lisa Holst, a columnist for PC Professional – in an attempt to prove people would fall for anything they read on the net. But by far the most disturbing thing about urban legends is not, however, that they are generally false, but that – now and again – they turn out to be true.

Such is the case with the story of the Las Vegas couple who spend the night of their honeymoon with a murdered girl under their mattress. Admittedly there's no evidence it ever happened in Las Vegas, but in fact, it's not uncommon for rotting corpses to be stashed in bed pedestals in US motels. In the last two decades, there are at least 20 confirmed stories of decomposing remains being discovered after the guests complained of the smell, including, in 1999, 64-year-old Saul Hernandez who spent several nights under a German couple in room 112 at the Burgundy Motor Inn in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Now if that's not enough to give you nightmares ...