Investigation into Urban Legends

Urban legends are stories that are false but have recent events in them. According to American Heritage Dictionary urban legends An apocryphal story involving incidents of the recent past, often including elements of humor and horror, that spreads quickly and is popularly believed to be true,” (education.yahoo.com).

The first legend that I never heard of and that some people might fall for is about a shark leaping out and attacking a helicopter “National Geographic's Web site was deluged with hundreds of queries a day when an e-mail containing a photo of a shark leaping out of the water to attack a helicopter,” (http://news.nationalgeographic.com). People will believe this because of where they are finding this.

The second urban legend that I never heard of and that some people might fall for is The Pregnant Man. People might believe this is because this person was born a female.

“Mr. Beatie -- formerly Ms. Lagondino -- is a transgender person, born female, who had his outward features medically altered to achieve a more masculine appearance but kept his reproductive organs intact. He claims he became pregnant five months ago via artificial insemination,” (http://urbanlegends.about.com). Some people might not believe it because he had a sex operation to become a man.

The second urban legend that I never heard of and that some people might fall for is Chinese hacker riot. “The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (FBI NIPC) issued an alert about "increased Internet attacks against U.S. web sites and mail servers possible in early May." The agency based its warning on a recent international incident between U.S. and Chinese military aircraft. The U.S. military forwarded the cyber-alert to its units stationed around the globe,” (http://vmyths.com/hmul/6/14/). People might believe this because of computer threats and when people are alerted about computer viruses or threat they get concerned.

To be honest most of the urban legends that are mentioned I haven’t heard of but there is one that I thought of while reading them. Now this might be one that most people know called “Bloody Mary.” The legend is that if you say her name three times in the mirror she will come out and attack you.

The reason that the Web is so prone to these types of “stories” is that everyone reads something on the Internet no matter where it is and what it is.