The Weekly World News is a tabloid known for its outrageous headlines and stories like Clinton Meets With Space Aliens! and Face of Satan seen in Forest-Fire Smoke! In the paper today, I saw a story that says scientists are going to more closely examine the Iceman, the remains of a man who died in the Austrian Alps 5,300 years ago and was found only recently. Immediately, a WWN-style story leapt to mind:
This would also make a terrific Urban Legend and perhaps an article in one of the more credulous Creationist magazines floating about.
I don’t need to make up my own Weekly World News story since my family has already been featured in the WWN!
My mother was widowed with two small children when she married my dad, so I have an older half-brother and half-sister. Their biological dad, my mom’s first husband, was a bit of a hell-raiser (which contributed to his early death, BTW) and ran with a pretty rough crowd. At some point in time, one of his buddies stole his car, which is the basis for the WWN story.
Forty years after stealing the car (about five years ago) the guy who stole it got an attack of conscience and mailed a check for $1000 to the Spokane County Sherrif’s office with an explanation that he had stolen so-and-so’s car, naming him by name, and asking if they would please give the money to any descendants, if they could find them.
I don’t know how WWN got ahold of the story, but there it was: “Car Thief Repents Forty Years Later!”. FWIW, the story, as reported, was pretty accurate.
What they didn’t cover was the dubious reluctance of the Sherrif’s department to part with the dough. The letter specified that if they couldn’t find anyone to give the money to they could give it to their favorite charity, which was apparently the Spokane County Sherrif’s Department slush fund. My brother had to threaten them with public exposure and a lawsuit before they came across.
And then my sister had to try to get her half from my brother!