Until I was 12 or 13...
... I believed that men had periods in their 50s and 60s which is why they stop having kids and get grey hair.

My mates still don't let me forget it.

Bastards.
( sd Oh cumbuns!, Mon 9 Jan 2006, 0:13, Reply)

tripe.
"No dear, of course you can't get pregnant your first time..."
(blackfacedfightinggibbon, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 23:39, Reply)

Feet getting sucked into escalators
Dunno if anyone remembers these ads, When I was about 4 (1980s), there used to be these adverts on telly which showed some wellies and shoes on an escalator step and they got caught in the side of the moving step and chewed up.

Now don't get me wrong, I used to laugh at these ads until my mad auntie told me that it can really happen to you.
The thought of getting me feet sucked into the side of an escalator step scared the crap outa me, and I wouldn't go on one for years. Then one day when I was 8, my parents took us to disney world. When I got to the airport, Fcuk me, there was an escalator. Mum said "Never mind, we'll take the lift instead."

Which woulda been fine, except the same psycho aunt had told me just the year before that if u go into an elevator and there is too many people, the cable will snap and you will drop to the bottom and die...nice.
Never did get to see Mickey Mouse.

P.S: She's mad but I still love my auntie to bits!
(caspia_ren, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 22:25, Reply)

Ghostbusters
When I was about six (I think) a friend and I concocted and propagated a story that the green slimey ghost from Ghostbusters was in the school caretaker's shed, and he'd bite your finger if you poked it through the hole in the door. We ended up with about fifteen kids queuing neatly to the shed door, then poking their finger in and pretending to be bitten so they wouldn't look stupid.
ha!
(Jack Rarebit ...We like chillies, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 22:15, Reply)

Captain Pugwash
Sorry if this has been posted already, but the whole thing about all the characters in Captain Pugwash having smutty names like Master Bates, Seaman Staines, and Roger the Cabin Boy must surely be the most widely believed urban myth OF ALL TIME! And still staunchly upheld by quite a few of my mates whenever its mentioned in the pub.

In actual fact, it stems from an article in The Guardian in 1991 which basically made the whole thing up. In reality their names were Master Mate, Tom the Cabin Boy, Pirates Barnabas and Willy.

So no sexual connotations there then...
(BeardyMat, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 21:29, Reply)

Oh the shame
I was talking with friends about parents' ages once, and I realized the large gap between the ages of someone's father and mother. I asked.

She strung out a whole story about how her mother had a rare condition where she was born preggers and blahblah. I fell for it. It was a lie, obviously.


And the Little Mermaid penis cover? I totally have a towel (don't even ask). This one time a group of us were discussing Urban Legends and that one came up. "It's true!" I cried, pointing at one of the towers. Cue joke about the icky guy I was dating.

[insert joke about length here]
(I bape rabies Let's go get Chick-fi-A!, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 20:59, Reply)

I was once reliably informed,
during a year 9 sex education day, no less, that Exeter is the "genital warts capital of Europe."

I've seen no evidence either supporting or rebutting this, but I've never been able to visit that fair city since without feeling slightly unclean afterwards.
(MooCow_Byter, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 20:32, Reply)

yep
I was in third grade and it was the summer just after Disney's The Lion King was released.

Well- several of my classmates swore up and down that the singing voice of Simba was Michael Jackson when he was a kid. According to them- when Michael Jackson was still a child- Disney had him record a bunch of songs for their animation to be reproduced at a MUCH later date.

We argued for quite sometime.

also...when asking my mom why girls had a vagina and boys had a penis... she quickly said "oh well some girls have a penis and some boys have a vagina." or at least that is how my little mind understood it. I wont tell you how old I was when I figured the truth of that one out. Young enough to still lose face.
(blahism, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 20:24, Reply)

Birkenhead Legends...
#1 Birkenhead Park was the original inspiration for New York's Central Park, anyone around Birkenhead will tell you the same.

#2 Urban legend has it that Birkenhead Park has a 10 foot Pike in the lake which is known as 'the grandad pike', apparantly nobody ever managed to catch it, but if you ever see a load of fishing floats speeding across the lake - they are attached to the legendary pike. This rumour has been going for around 20 odd years and is feared by all the kids learning to fish even today.

#3 Also were I live, a neighbouring town (Wallasey) is allegedly were all the gays live. The saying used to be, if you ever drop a penny on the penny bridge (seperating the towns) kick it all the way across until you get back to Birkenhead! (ie; don't bend down to pick it up)
(Lefty, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 20:02, Reply)

Banana high
Around all my stoner friends at high school there was a rumour that you could get high off the crap on the inside of banana skins if you dried it out and smoked it. There was always someone who'd heard of someone tellig them they'd done it but isn't this always the case
(darkmavis86, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 18:22, Reply)

A teacher at our school had....
a wooden tit.
(bdgr can't think of anything witty to type here, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 18:13, Reply)

I don't know if this counts as an urban myth...
...but for years I believed that Telford (a kind of arch nemesis rival town to Shrewsbury, where I live) had the highest teenage pregancy rate in the UK. I also believed that Shrewsbury has the largest amount of pubs per square mile than any other town in the UK.

That is until I started Uni, where, during numerous introductory conversations in Freshers week, I soon discovered that pretty much every other town / city in the country also shares these acolades. Altho thinking about it that second one could well be true!
(BeardyMat, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 17:28, Reply)

honhest to god
they use pig pee to put in those ink iradicators

also, one person at my school thought you got high on bananas and sprite, when it actually made you sick, but we made him do it, and nothing happened, apart from he pretended to be high, damn that guy is a fucking reject.

true story
(ameoba photographer for hire, cheap, see profile, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 16:41, Reply)

Envelope of death
I fell for the one about licking envelopes, getting a papercut, which ends with cockroaches in your tongue. I hadn't licked an envelope in about five years till I found out it was just an urban legend on Snopes. Still, I didn't miss much.
( Maladicta, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 16:06, Reply)

Jeremy Spate
Has apparently got links with the Russian Mafia

I did read it in the Daily Mail, so it is probably bullshit.
(Hagbard MacDougal, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 16:05, Reply)

Arse water
I once told my girlfriend while we were at the pool that "all the water in the pool had been up at least one person's arse due to the lower pressure caused in the bowels by bringing the legs up while doing breaststroke". Describing the phenomena as "arse water".

Until she told people at work the next day and got laughed at.

Swimming gets a little tedious sometimes.
(godders loves you, children, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 15:19, Reply)

anal dog of death
apologies if bindun but:

I once had a friend who managed to convince his girlfriend that anal sex was beneficial to both of them. After the act took place he withdrew himself and she proceeded to defecate all over the brand new cream leather sofa. Needless to say when his parents found out he couldn't tell them the truth, so he blamed the dog. And so the parents decided to put the bitch down... the girl escaped unharmed.

that one had me fooled for about 40mins until i told it to someone who said that the same thing had happened to her friend. dam
(antifilth, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 15:17, Reply)

Lucky strike....
Now what you have to understand is that:
1. I don't smoke.
And 2. I was told this by a sister who doesn't smoke either.

So there is going to be a large amount in factual incorrectness'.
(Squermily, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 14:53, Reply)

Parents Are Bastards!
Is it just me or do the majority of urban myths seem to come from parents making up complete lies to scare their kids into doing what they want them to? When I was eleven and my brother thirteen he inexplicably asked for an electric blanket for christmas (christ only knows why). In the spirit of fairness and laziness, guess what I also got that year? Get the fuck in! What eleven year old doesn't think that's a cool present? Oh yeah, all of them! Anyway, enough of me being a spoilt brat. To ensure we didn't waste electricity my mother told me that she once knew a man who'd fallen asleep and left his electric blanket on all night and when he woke up it had electrocuted his leg right off! I believed this whole heartedly until I repeated it in front of my entire, 13 year old, physics class and got laughed out of the door. Bastards!

It was this that suddenly made me realise that the story about the man who drank out of cans may not have been altogther truthful either. Apparently he kept them in the cellar and, unbeknownst to him, a rat had weed on the top of the can. Was drinking from a wee covered can enough for my parents? No. Apparently when he opened the ringpull he cut his finger on the sharp edge and the rat's wee infected the wound to the point where he had to have his arm amputated! Bastards! Canned drinks terrified the living shite out of me for years!

I wonder how much else of my childhood was complete and utter a-grade bullshit?

EDIT: I claim my five pounds for entering Panic Buying, Urban Legends, Shame, Old People Talk Bollocks, Shoddy Presents, Pure Ignorance and Lies Your Parents Told You all at the same time.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sun 8 Jan 2006, 14:13, Reply)

Lemon Sented
lucky strikes are not cheep fags, and they are still produced, and they originated from the army issue cigarettes in america they gave to the troops, so i doubt they would have dope in them. and they are bloody nice, remember, the tobacco is toasted!
(Geoff Leopard, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 13:59, Reply)

garrison
It was Les Ferdinand and Dennis Wise (along with a few other mates) who vandalised the Blue Peter garden, apparently they were friends growing up. They've both openly admitted it so I'm guessing its not an urban myth. The chances of them trying to create an urban myth involving themselves are probably slim considering that Dennis Wise seems only marginally more intelligent than a goalpost.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sun 8 Jan 2006, 13:49, Reply)

This is getting dumb
I'm starting to think I'm the only person who never believed the priest in 'Little Mermaid' had a boner. I've gotten into screaming matches about it, cos even though an upper shot shows the bulge is spread out, the bad posture and short stature rule out anything else aside from his knees, and a capitalist dictatorship like Disney wouldn't risk billions in lawsuits by the American Parents of Christian Children and the Light of Jesus Christ for an Enlightened America with no Jews, Catholics, Liberals, Gays, Colored People, or Others, by putting shots of a priest with a hard-on in the damn picture, there's a bulge, so it MUST be wood. Not to mention, it's about the stupidest thing in the world to get into a screaming match about.

However, I did believe the urban legend about the Democrats getting their shit together for '04 and getting Bush II out of office.

What I lack in faith, I make up for in length. Ah, oops. Never mind.
(DeadCats, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 9:08, Reply)

Mum in a pickle
I don't think my mum heard this anywhere, but instead put two and two together to produce this little gem...we were talking about Richard Branson one day, and she was adamant that he was "heir to the pickle empire".

I nearly soiled myself laughing, before reminding her of the "t" in the middle of the Crosse and Blackwell condiment.

This sounds very much like I'm making it up, but you haven't met my mum. You would believe me within about ten seconds in her company.
(Nardis, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 5:28, Reply)

Urban Legends of Religious Visitations...
Thank you Shannon623! I feared that I was the only person who fell for the whole Mr Ed was a zebra hoax on Snopes. False authority syndrome indeed. Still, I do still use them to filter most of the crap I get e-mailed, so it is a rare urban legend that catches me out.

Starting them on the other hand....

In my youth I was (and to a lesser extent still am) fascinated by all things spooky, paranormal and otherworldly. Although more cynical and jaded these days, I recall with fondness the days when I had an unwavering belief in the existence of ghosts, monsters, ufos and every conspiracy under the sun (I'm still a fully paid subscriber to Fortean Times btw).

Anyway, one rainy autumn afternoon when I was in Primary 6 (I and my classmates would have been about 10 or 11) my group where doing their very best to avoid doing any work, so we were swapping all the usual Bloody Mary/dead janitor/the hook was still attached to the door stories. The usual friend of a friend bullshit.

So, I start telling stories that these kids have never heard before. It is important to know two things at this point. Firstly, this was a Catholic Primary School. Secondly, I am from a Catholic family, but was raised on a diet of supernatural and conspiracy books, bought by my father who in all other respects appears to be more hard-line than the Pope!

I start on with stories of religious apparitions. Moving statues. Fatima. Lourdes. Stigmata. And then I left, as I had to attend clarinet lessons. Only on my return to school the following morning did I find out what I had unleashed.

You see, like all classrooms in the school, we had a statue of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) in our classroom. I don't know how familiar you people are with these statues, but generally the BVM has her hands outstretched and is crushing a snake under one foot. I mentioned that a lot of people see statues, like the one in our classroom, moving, the eyes blinking, the lips moving etc. I should have sensed trouble brewing when someone in my group said they thought they saw the snake move.

After I left the class, apparently the other kids in my group swore blind that the statue was swaying, that it's hands moved to bless them, that it looked at them. Word quickly spread. By the end of the day, every statue of the BVM was pretty much goose-stepping up and down the worksurfaces of every classroom in school.

And it gets better. There was a HUGE statue just by the main door to the school. Yup, you guessed it. It had apparently begun to wander about the school too.

There was a school disco that night. The school chaplain was in attendance. Poor Fr O'Brien. I don't think seminary prepares you for 40 terrified children begging you to perform an exorcism on the school and "tell Mary to stop moving".

So, the question we must ask ourselves is this: did the Virgin Mary decide to manifest herself in the form of moving statues in a primary school in Paisley on a wet and dreary autumnal afternoon in 1990? Or did the hyperactive imaginations of small children get overstimulated by the tall tales of a young lawofnations?

You decide...

Apologies for the rambling incoherence. Must remember not to post at 4am. But I was waiting up for soon-to-be-Mrs-lawofnations to get back from her hen night, and am still not quite sleepy enough to hit the sack.
(lawofnations, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 3:56, Reply)

Smartarse flatmates
(just to set the scene, I'm at uni in Lincoln, and theres a HUGE cathedral there, nearly 1000 years old, etc. for those who don't know)
My mate's flatmate is a bit of a nob, thinks he's better than us because he's doing Journalism instead of Fine Art (go us!), shops at Waitrose and doesn't have a Brummie accent (like my mate) so it was pretty damn amusing when she sent him a text saying "btw, the cathedral fell down today, but its ok, me and claire put it back up again." and he looks cautiously out of the window to have a look......
(Ryuken-Kai, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 2:42, Reply)

But snopes never lies!
For about five years, I really believed the legend on Snopes that Mr. Ed (the horse on the American programme of the same name) was actually a zebra. I swore that stripes couldn't be captured by black and white television cameras, zebras are easier to train, and that the producers simply painted over his stripes when the show went to colour. No reasonable argument could shake my faith in the gospel that is snopes. That is, until I revisited the page several years later, clicked the "more information" link, and found the page saying I'd been had.
(Shannon623, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 2:27, Reply)

Some would think im blonde....
When i lived in the channel islands i told my frined that becasue germans had taken them over in the war the residents still to this day spoke german. And we were 8 hours ahead of us, Meaning that when she phoned me at 4pm in the afternoon id have to pretend it was 12oclock and so on.

And i told my m8 louis walsh was gay which she told everybody.

WHEN I was 5ish my bedtime was 8pm and it was alwasy the breaks in coranation street that signalled i had to go get my pajamas on. Little Did i know my parents would tape corantion street and play it at 5pm so id be asleep by 5.30.

Oh and my dad told me lord of the rings was based on a true story which i only found out WASNT true a few weeks ago the amusement of my boyfriends.

Oh and my parents told me i was th eonly Girl in the old to have my name spelt with a K. i cried when i met anotehr girl whos name was the same as mine.

Oh and another one. I have human hair extensions in and my Friend asked me where they came from. I told her that victims of the tsunami in thailand were that poor that they shaved there hair pff and sold it tothe western world becasue there hair is much better quality. AShe told everybody and then i was accused of being "sick"
Oh god im quite dense.
(StrangeKristine, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 1:16, Reply)

Lucky Strike
My sister told me this, and I almost believed it.

There used to be a cigarette company called Lucky Strike, and one in every one-hunderd Cigarettes made had cannabis in it. Thus you would be lucky if you got it. This was years ago, when smoking was recomended to asthmatics.

But sadly they are no longer about, since the law has changed making that sort of thing illegal. The company went bust because the cigarettes were cheep and horrid, so without the temptation of the weed nobody bought them any more.
(Squermily, Sun 8 Jan 2006, 1:16, Reply)

I was told earlier that right-handed people live seven years longer than lefties.
Presumably, the experiment they used to prove this consisted of a scientist with a stopwatch following various people about until they died, at which point he would report back.
( Reid got it going on like Donkey Kong, Sat 7 Jan 2006, 23:20, Reply)

Purple aki
this weird bloke who was into kids he used to hang around taylor park. i think he got arrested tho not sure.a few of my mates had seen him. i've not but i hear he's a creepy fella tho.
(torture bunny lives under the kitchen sink, Sat 7 Jan 2006, 22:14, Reply)