Truth or Fiction: The Scoop on Urban Legends Quiz

Answer: Completely false

A newer e-mail rumor has surfaced warning people of a new carjacking ploy. According to the rumor, the carjacker places an ad flyer on the back window of the potential victim's car. The victim, not realizing the flyer is on the glass until he or she has already started the car and begun backing up, gets out of the still-running car to move the flyer. That's when the carjacker supposedly makes his move.

Although this has some good common-sense safety tips, law enforcement officials indicate that this type of scenario hasn't happened.

Answer: Completely false

Although African-Americans have faced disenfranchisement before, they should never face it again. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensure that this right will not be abridged. Several provisions of the Voting Rights Act have to be reviewed and renewed periodically, but that doesn't affect what the Constitution has guaranteed.

Answer: Completely true

On July 2, 1982, Larry Walters attached 42 helium-filled weather balloons to a lawn chair at his girlfriend's home in the Los Angeles suburb of San Pedro. Armed with a CB radio and a BB gun (to shoot balloons to lose altitude), Walters set off on what was to be a tethered flight--his rig was tied to a sports utility vehicle on the ground, and the rope was just a couple hundred feet long.

However, the balloons provided much greater lift than he anticipated, and instead of a safe hover, he wound up floating for over twelve hours in busy Los Angeles airspace.

When his rig landed, it got entangled in some power lines, causing a blackout. Walters's antics earned him the proverbial 15 minutes of fame, but his life ended in suicide in 1993.

Answer: Completely true

This extremely eerie coincidence left The Coup, an anti-establishment hip-hop duo, and its label, 75 Ark, in an unusual predicament. Though 75 Ark would move to change the cover of the album, titled "Party Music", in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center, Coup leader Boots Riley wanted to retain the image of flames and smoke spewing from the buildings, as a sign of their disdain for capitalism and terrorism.

The cover itself had been produced sometime in May or June of 2001, and had been included in promotional materials for the album.

The exploding buildings on the album cover had not been hit by airplanes, nor were there any airplanes in the picture; Riley himself was holding a detonator to set off the fake explosion. (Thanks to wirednews.com for additional information for this question.)

Answer: Partially true. Calling an unfamiliar phone number in the Caribbean can result in ridiculous charges.

Scammers posing as legitimate businesses have been referencing phone numbers with Caribbean area codes--809 is the one most often cited in the e-mail rumors, but there are others--when they leave messages for unsuspecting victims here in the States. When those victims return the calls, they've been charged at rates of $10 to $100 per minute.

While the scams are indeed true, and the charges completely legal, simply placing a call to an established business or friend in that area--one known and trusted, that is--only costs a little more than a regular long distance call. Even though they have area codes like the United States and Canada do, areas like the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic are treated like international call zones.

Answer: Partially true. The test is real, but no one knows for sure who it was written for

Among the many e-mails circulating between friends these days are the did-you-know variety, filled with unusual facts or, in this case, questions that can make your head swim. The test, administered in Salinas, Kansas, around 1895, focused on subjects like grammar, arithmetic and US History, and allowed the taker a total of five hours to complete it.

The historical society that first posted the test on the Internet in 1996, however, does not know whether the test was required to pass the eighth grade or whether it was part of a collegiate or adult-education program.

Answer: Completely false

Cellular phones and other personal electronic devices have been unfairly targeted as hazards at the gas pump. While it is true that the discharge of static electricity has caused over one hundred gas-station fires in the United States alone, not one fire has been attributed to a cell phone. In fact, in safety guidelines found on the American Petroleum Institute website, cell phones are not even listed as a potential hazzard at the pump.

This includes the case of a college student who, in May 2004, inadvertently set off a gas-pump fire in New Paltz, New York, when he answered his cell phone. Initially, the fire department there blamed the cell phone for the fire, but further investigation showed that a static discharge was responsible.

Cell phone batteries, however, may be prone to explode, especially if those batteries are counterfeit, incompatible, or charged with defective chargers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission reported over 80 such incidents in a two-year stretch, but none of them touched off any gas-station explosions.

(Thanks to ABC News, CNN.com, Snopes.com, and the Petroleum Equipment Institute website for additional information.)

Answer: Completely false

Yet another warning hoax, neither the Klingerman Virus nor the Klingerman Foundation--the organization allegedly associated with the virus--exist. This hoax circulated some time before the real and deadly anthrax attacks in the United States after September 11, 2001.

Answer: Completely false

There's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's no such thing as getting free merchandise by forwarding an e-mail. How would a company as big as Honda, for example, know how many people an e-mail had been forwarded to? And if by some means they did know, would they simply want to give away millions of shiny new Accords?

Answer: Completely false

The Darwin Awards, which really do exist, are bestowed posthumously to those poor souls who bumble, stumble and fumble their way to an ignominious death. Not only is there a website (www.darwinawards.com), but several books devoted to Darwin Award winners (and near-winners) are on the bookstands. The Metallica fans in this rumor never existed.