Well I was just a PFC (Private First Class) and had been in Saudi Arabia for all of 3 or 4 days when a buddy told me this one about a guy whose wife sends him a “Dear John” porno video.
Hell, I didn’t just believe it, I told it to people.
I’m generally rather skeptical but I trusted the guy that told me this story.
I used to believe that the Coriolis Effect was observable in any household toilet. In my defense, I was told this by my college astronomy professor.
It was none other than our very own Bad Astronomer who debunked this one for me on his website, which also led me here, for which I am eternally grateful.
As a college freshman, I remember falling for the “evil predatory gay roommate who ethers you up and molests you” story.
Jeez, I can’t believe you people have fallen for this stuff!! The Bonsai Kitty, the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe, the "Ring Around the Ros… Huh? That’s not about the bubonic plague?
GODDAMMIT!!!
I believed the one about a woman’s abdominal cavity hatching shrimp after said anonymous woman used a lobster and a cigarette lighter to give herself an orgasm.
What the hell?, you may ask. Who would perpetuate such a story, and who would be dumb enough to believe it?
Well, you know the answer to the second question, but the story was floating around. Oh well.
http://www.snopes.com/sex/juvenile/lobster.htm
Hey, YOU ASKED.
By the way, I didn’t believe that particular account-- my college roommate told me a similar version that his friend had heard “on the news.” I believed it for a few hours until I bothered to look on Snopes. So I’m gullible, sheesh.
I believed the JATO-Impala legend. People kill themselves in such weird ways that it seemed plausible. Still, now that it’s been debunked, it is getting sort of old. Last I checked the Darwin Awards website still paraded it around with some meek admission that it might - just might - be a big fat smelly lie.
I believed the Ring Around the Rosie thing too.
I believed the poodle in microwave thing, but I was about nine when I heard it so I can be forgiven.
I believed the one about the 60s Hippies Dropping Acid and Going Blind from Looking at the Sun because a very respected science teacher at my school told it to me (I was in the 7th grade and sort of impressionable).
Here’s one I think is probably an urban legend, which I believed until I thought about it again for the first time in years. My best friend’s girlfriend’s family used to own a propane-powered van. One day it was stolen. The police later identified it by a piece of the license plate. The thieves had taken it to an ordinary gas station, filled the tank, and drove off. They made it a few blocks before it exploded. Okay, I don’t believe that one at all, but I’m not sure if it’s made the rounds enough that it counts as popular myth or if I’m a lone sucker.
I believed the one about Why Rod Steward Had to Get his Stomach Pumped (which has been told about several male celebrities, I gather) but I never believed the Richard Gere one. I am wholly agnostic on the Famous Sammy Hagar / Ozzy Osbourne Gross Out Concert(s).
I am proud to say I never believed the Large Hamburger Chain Puts Earthworms in its Burgers legend (told, in my locale, about Wendy’s), nor did I ever believe the Lip Balm Company Adds Powdered Fiberglass legend. I immediately recognized the List of Songs Banned by Radio Station Chain After September 11 as a massive distortion bordering on an urban legend.
It’s funny, I have retold several urban legends as jokes (I mean, I point out quite explicitly that they are jokes early on in the telling) and had people miss the joke part, either believing me or thinking I was a liar. Really, folks, if I’m cracking up telling you the story it’s probably a joke!
I STILL believe that Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite.
Last one I believed was the JATO car one. My wife falls for them all the time, though…she recently relayed to me the story about the woman whose kid disappeared in Wal-Mart and security found the kid with some man in a dressing room, who had already changed the kids clothes and was cutting it’s hair (so it wouldn’t fit the description when he snuck the kid out the store).
it’s a UL? ooooooops…
otherwise, i’m fairly unbelieving about such things… (i hope…)
Aw, crap! :o
When I first read The Parts Left Out of The Kennedy Book from The Realist, i beleived it…
I kinda fell for the Mariah Carey UL, about being jealous of starving women in Africa, cause they were so skinny, but that she could never live with all those flies.
Maybe it was because I wanted to believe that about her.
Chalk me up for “Ring Around the Rosie” too. :o
I was also told this by a teacher, my grade 8 History teacher to be exact.
Ah, well, can’t win them all. I am however the resident debunker in my group as well. 
So I guess I’m reformed.
IF anything now, I make a nuisance of myself by sending out “Don’t forward UL” emails, but I wrote a STRONGLY worded email to the local congressman about getting charged for email by the USPS.
In my defense, I had just gotten on the real net, and (to my recollection) never been bitten by a net UL. Now I use the phrase, “Well, I got this off the net, which means it’s probably NOT true, but…”
Ok, now I’m confused. I got a new issue of Harper’s magazine yesterday, and what do I find in the section of short pieces but that list of no-no songs passed around after Sept. 11. What the hey?