Lucille Ball's fillings and their contribution to the war effort

Factual Questions
1

Yesterday, I read on the snopes.com site (urban legends) that Lucille Ball’s dental fillings could have permitted the capture of Japanese spies. (Go to the site for the whole story). There had been a first instance when Ms. Ball’s mouth filled with music after her fillings had intercepted commercial radio signals. Here’s what Lucy had to say about the second instance:

Now, assuming this to be true (Snopes puts it in the category of “Items of undetermined or ambiguous veracity”), my question is, How were those signals translated into sounds once they had been intercepted by the redhead’s fillings?

2

Well now. The electrical current present in ever human body would do IT’S part. The vibrations would be amplified by the mandible. The crossovers would be the cerebral cortex, and her hair would be the speaker cloth.

If Irving M. Fried ever got a hold of Lucy, we’d all have crimson red IMF’s :slight_smile:

Cartooniverse

3

Forgive my ignorance, but when you say “her hair would be the speaker cloth”, what do you mean? How can sound be “formed”? (I’m thinking more of music than of Morse code here, which is a more “primary” sound)

4

My mother had fillings that picked up radio signals when she was younger. I have heard this phenomenon wrongly called an urban legend.

5

Apparently there is scant information on how this happens. Here is Cecil’s column: Is it possible to hear radio broadcasts through your teeth?.

I wonder how these folks change the station. My fillings don’t have any knobs or anything.

6

Thanks. Once again, caught pants down (no signals through my schwang, though). Rookie error: should have suspected Unca Cece had dealt with the subject matter. Nothing much to be extracted:) from the article, though.

7

I don’t know about Lucille Ball, but if I remember correctly this WAS the plot of an Andrews Sisters show during the war. In fact, I think it showed up in a few places.

8

From snopes.com: