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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 110 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
Special Topics
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Urban Legends
| According to rumor, what feature was added to a car that made it airborne before it crashed into the side of a hill, far from the nearest roadway? | Urban Legends
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JATO Rocket. JATO (jet assisted take-off) rockets are used by military cargo planes to take off from short airfields and aircraft carriers.
| What animal supposedly commits suicide when its population levels get too high? | Urban Legends
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Lemmings. The film crew of White Wilderness induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior! True!
| According to rumor, what was the disposition of Walt Disney's body? | Urban Legends
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Frozen in Cryogenic Chamber. There is no evidence that Walt Disney arranged for, was interested in, or had even heard of cryonic suspension prior to his death. His body was cremated and later interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
| Killing of what insect is rumored to invoke a fine of {$50} if caught? | Urban Legends
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Praying Mantis. Although they are useful (yet creepy IMO) insects, killing one is not illegal.
$250. A shopper supposedly asks for their cookie recipe after having one at their cafe. She thinks they mean $2.50 when they say it costs 'two-fifty', not $250. Though its present incarnation casts Neiman-Marcus as the bad guy, this legend has been around for at least 50 years, and it's been told of various companies (and various confections) during its long history. The rumor is usually accompanied by a cookie recipe of unknown origin.
| Ironically, a man supposedly insured what against fire damage? | Urban Legends
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Cigars. The story goes that he insured expensive cigars against fire damage. After he smoked them, he filed his claim. The insurance company refused to pay, so he sued. He won, but as soon as he accepted the money, the company had him arrested for arson.
| According to rumor, what shouldn't you drink after eating (and swallowing) Pop Rocks candy? | Urban Legends
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Soda Pop. Supposedly, a boy (sometimes Mikey from the Life Cereal commercial) ate Pop Rocks then drank a 6-pack of soda. This caused his stomach to explode, killing him horribly.
| The 5-cent-per-email-message rumor is proposed by what congressional bill? | Urban Legends
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602P. Two clues to this being an urban legend: 1) US congressional bills start with either HR or S, depending on what house they start {in;} 2) The Canadian version of this UL is verbatim, including '602P', but with US and Canadian references substituted.
| What part of a soft drink can is supposed to be redeemable for kidney dialysis for the poor? | Urban Legends
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Pull Tab. Aluminum companies have been rumored to pay for a minute of dialysis for every pull tab collected. In answer to this dogged rumor, they'll take the tabs and donate the market value of the aluminum to kidney research. But they point out that donating the whole can will net them more money.
| According to this legend, NASA spent millions of dollars developing what that would work in outer space when the Soviets solved the same problem by simply using pencils? | More Urban Legends
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Astronaut pen. Fisher created the 'Fisher Space Pen' which took the place of pencils in space. Pencils were too dangerous because the point could break at any time and points and shavings flying about aimlessly in zero gravity could cause technical difficulties. Ever seen Homer Simpson in space?
| According to this urban legend, which extremist group supposedly owns Marlboro? | More Urban Legends
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Ku Klux Klan. This one began in the 1980s but is false.
| Allegedly at an MTV music award show Lauryn Hill said she'd rather see babies starve (or some other variation) than have who buy her albums? | More Urban Legends
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White people. Where's the proof?
| Which credit card company is supposedly principally owned by Osama Bin Laden? | More Urban Legends
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Citibank. This is not true, however a Saudi prince holds 5 percent of stock in Citibank. Another urban legend insists that Osama Bin Laden owns the beverage company, Snapple!
| With who did Dr. Seuss supposedly attend college with and were members of the same fraternity, even though Seuss was 18 years older? | More Urban Legends
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr.. Considering that Dr. Seuss was 18 years the senior of Kurt Vonnegut, or by a simple search on the Internet on both men, would show that they didn't come anywhere near attending the same school, and I've never read anywhere that they'd ever met.
| Allegedly, Michael Jackson's phone number was contained in the UPC code of which album? | More Urban Legends
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Thriller. This is false. Refer snopes2.com
| This true urban legend tells us what the clothing line, FUBU, stands for? | More Urban Legends
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For us by us . FUBU started in Queens, New York in 1992 by five friends. What makes them different is their clothing line, targeted for the African-American community, is one of the few that are actually owned and operated by African-Americans.
| According to this urban legend, what are drug users supposedly leaving in the coin return slots of payphones? | More Urban Legends
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Hypodermic needles. This legend is false. Refer snopes2.com
| According to this urban legend, Susan Lucci, who plays Erica on 'All My Children', is supposedly the daughter of which self deprecating comedienne who occasionally guest stars on the soap? | More Urban Legends
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Phyllis Diller. I don't know when this legend appeared, however, how 'funny' is it that a glamorous soap opera queen would be the daughter of a decidedly unglamourous comedienne?
| The tiny stars that appeared in or near the letter P on the cover of Playboy magazine from 1955 to 1979 supposedly meant what? | More Urban Legends
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How many times Hugh Hefner had slept with that month's centerfold.. The stars were used as a distribution code based on advertising regions for its editions. It was sometime during the 1960s where the legend developed that the stars were a 'code' announcing Hugh Hefner's rating of the current month's centerfold's performance in bed, looks, etc.
| Well, sorry I haven't been able to interest you in anything. Before you go, have a look at this here pickup. Vehicle fire? Well, yeah, but you can buff that out. Oddly enough, the owner's dog was responsible for the accident. How? | Urban Legends Auto
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The owner was illegally fishing with dynamite. His dog dutifully fetched the 'stick' he threw in the water.. There are several variations on this story. The owner is usually fishing with dynamite and his dog fetches the explosive (sometimes he's ice fishing and his truck ends up sinking in the lake). Sometimes he's just a sadist who straps M80's to bunny rabbits until one runs under his truck. The story ends with the insurance company refusing to pay off, leaving him to make payments on a totaled vehicle.
Thanks for playing. I got most of my information from the Urban Legends reference site http://www.snopes.com/autos/autos.asp and from the great books by Jan Harold Brunvand. And remember, next time you're parking in lovers' lane, if you hear a strange scraping on the roof DON'T LOOK!
| Of course, it's not the cops you have to look out for, it's the psychos on the road. In fact, there's a gang out there whose initiation consists of killing certain motorists! What motorists do they target? | Urban Legends Auto
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Drivers who flash their lights. This made the rounds a few years ago. Supposedly guys who wanted to join a gang would drive around at night with their lights off. When someone flashed their lights to warn them, the gangstas would hunt them down and kill them. Thankfully, this never actually happened.
| That old semi? It's not for sale. Kind of tragic story there. It hit another big rig head-on. Know what they found lodged in the grill when they finally wrenched them apart? | Urban Legends Auto
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A VW Beetle with four people inside. They apparently left the two trucks at the scene of the accident for a while. A week later, the smell alerted authorities to the presence of a VW lodged between them.
| Rip-offs? I take offense! You wouldn't believe some of the deals I've made here. Can you spot the non-urban legend from these tales of amazing sales? | Urban Legends Auto
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A $70 Harley Davidson motorcycle. There is an urban legend about a man buying an old Harley, only to find it was once owned by Elvis, but he still paid market value.
The $50 Porche was sold by a woman whose husband had run off with his secretery, and instructed his wife to sell the car and the house and to send him half. I wonder why she didn't take it all in the divorce settlement.
The dream Corvette story is about a man who buys a classic car, is sent to Vietnam, and dies in action. Years later, his mother sells the machine for nothing, advertising it as an old Chevy. You can hear this story in David Ball's song 'Riding With Private Malone.'
The stinky sedan is a favorite of mine. The owner of a car dies in the front seat, (or is murdered and stuffed in the trunk). The body is not discovered for some time, and no one is able to remove the stench. You may remember this theme from an episode of 'Seinfeld.'
| Here's a nice little number. 1995 BMW, CD player, leather seats, low mileage...good eye! Yes, the car is completely disassembled. You must be a mechanic. Seems the owner was tortured by a persistant rattle...he eventually had to take the car apart to find the source. What was it? | Urban Legends Auto
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A handful of nuts and bolts in the door panel. After the car was taken completely apart, the mechanics sheepishly showed the rich owner the source. A factory worker had dumped loose bolts in the door panel, along with a note: 'So you finally found the rattle, you rich SOB'. Rather than pay to have the car put back together, the owner made it into a piece of modern art.
| Not your thing? Well, how about this convertible? What? Okay, it's not really a convertible, but you'll have to agree, it doesn't have a roof. What happened here? | Urban Legends Auto
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A man threw out his back while making love and the EMTs had to rip off the roof to get the couple out.. Many good urban legends deal with 'getting caught in the act.' The woman in this story was horrified...not about her lover's back, but how she was going to explain to her husband what happened to his car!
| We end the tour at Earwig Stadium, the campus football field. You should buy tickets now if you want a seat for the homecoming game. Last year, when the referee walked onto the field, something very odd occurred. What happened, according to the rumor? | Urban Legends University
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He was inexplicably swarmed by birds.. It seems an MIT student spent a summer spreading birdseed on Harvard's field, while dressed in a black and white shirt. When the ref stepped on the field, the birds swarmed down to get their treat. The student wrote his thesis on this and graduated.
Well, thank you for your attention. For more information, check out the books by Jan Harold Brunvand or visit us online at http://www.snopes.com/college/college.asp And if you ever meet anyone calling himself the Ether Bunny, watch your back.
| Anyone here planning on going to medical school? It's too far to walk today, but over that ridge is Snopes Hall, the medical school. Once, a medical student played a joke on her uptight roommate, using something stolen from the dissection labs. What did she do? | Urban Legends University
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Left a cadaver's arm in the roommate's bed.. The roommate is always portrayed as obnoxious, aloof, or somehow deserving of the treatment. Her roommate is a medical (or nursing) student. She leaves the arm in the roommate's bed (or dangling from the closet light cord). When the medical student returns, she finds to her horror that the prank drove the roommate insane, and she's now sitting on the floor gnawing on the severed limb. This way to the cafeteria!
| Now here's a lovely building: Monty Hall, the student center. Academics are very important here at ULU. In fact, every semester during finals week we have a mandatory 24 hour quiet period. It used to be 23 1/2 hours, but something unfortunate happened during the half hour of 'noise' time. What happened? | Urban Legends University
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A woman was raped, but no one could hear her screams over all the noise.. The idea of screaming for help and no one hearing (or caring) is common in folklore.
| Now this here is Attica Hall. No, it's not a storage shed, wise guy. It's the freshmen dorms. Yes, I know a girl died here last semester...lucky thing her roommate didn't turn on the lights, but that's another story. Seriously though, if your roommate dies, you do get a bit of a bonus. What is it? | Urban Legends University
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Automatic 4.0 GPA (straight A's) for the semester. This is a persistent rumor, but untrue. The rumor was the subject of the forgettable movie 'Dead Man on Campus.'
| Over here is Pavlov Hall, home of the school of psychology. An interesting thing happened here once. Using positive reinforcement, a class trained their professor to do what? | Urban Legends University
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Lecture from the top of a waste basket. At the beginning of the year the students only paid attention when the professor stood on the right side of the room. Then they only paid attention when he was near the waste basket. Then when he put his foot on the waste basket. Finally, using only positive reinforcement, the class 'trained' the professor to lecture from atop the basket, much like a trained seal. Other legends involve the professor lecturing standing on one leg or only writing on a tiny corner of the blackboard.
| Up ahead is Mikkelson Hall, which houses the English department. Speaking of English, I had a friend who studied in England for a semester. He once saw a fellow student request, and receive, something very unusual from a professor during an exam. What did he ask for? | Urban Legends University
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cakes and ale. This legend takes place at an old English university, such as Cambridge or Oxford. According to the legend, the student demanded cakes and ale during the exam. The professor told him to get back to work. The student then produced the school rule book, which dated back hundreds of years, and displayed the obscure, never removed clause: 'Any student sitting an exam may request cakes and ale.'
The professor sends an assistant out for the modern date equivalent, a burger and Coke. The student thinks he's really pulled one over on the professor until the next lecture, when the instructor fines him five pounds for not wearing his ceremonial sword to class.
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