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Fatal-A-Tee
Claim: A golfer in the habit of carrying his tee in his mouth while playing holes grows sicker and sicker over the course of a few days and then drops dead. A post-mortem reveals that the golfer had ingested a lethal dose of the pesticide sprayed on the golf course.
Origins: Although a few of the details have been changed, this legend is based on real-life incident. In 1982, Navy Lieutenant George M. Prior, 30, played 36 holes of golf at the Army-Navy Country Club in Arlington, VA. Even before the last hole Prior was complaining of a headache; by nightfall he was feverish and nauseated and had developed a rash. Four days later Prior was in Bethesda Naval Hospital with a 104.5 degree fever, his body covered with blisters. He died ten days later after a toxic substance had burned the skin from 80% of his body and caused his major organs to fail. The toxic substance was determined to be Daconil, an FDA-approved fungicide that had been sprayed on the Army-Navy golf course twice a week. Prior apparently had a hypersensitivity to the chemical used in the fungicide, causing a severe allergic reaction. His widow filed a $20 million lawsuit against the manufacturer, Diamond Shamrock Chemical Company; the lawsuit was eventually settled out of court.
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Flash Your Headlights and Die!
I heard this one about a year ago when I was living up in Seattle. The teller seemed to think it was happening at that time in and around the Pugetopolis, but that seemed unlikely to me. However, if the story were told in the context of, say, Los Angeles (or even New York, Chicago, Detroit, etc.) it would actually seem sort of plausible. Anyway, here goes:The story is that a new gang initiation ritual has become prevalent in our city. The hoodlums pile in a car, at night, and drive the highways and byways with their lights off. The first person who 'flashes' them with their lights (in the time-honored gesture of 'hey, idiot, your lights are off!') becomes their prey. The gangbangers then pursue the samaritan and the initiate must gun him or her down without mercy.Sounds like a myth, right? But do you suppose there is a kernel of truth to the rumor; that perhaps somewhere at sometime some thugs did, in fact, use this modus operandi?
Guide's note: Sounds like a myth and is a myth. Since the early '90s, this rumor has hit just about every major city in the U.S. There are no documented cases of incidents of this type actually occurring, except for an apparent "copycat" instance in Wichita in 1993 (cited in the AFU & Urban Legends Archive).
In late October of 1998, email versions of the "Lights Out" legend went into wide circulation, perhaps inspired by the popular horror film Urban Legend, in which it figured prominently. The email alerts sparked a flurry of panicked inquiries to police departments in localities all over the U.S., most of which seemed to be familiar with the rumor but could not substantiate it.
John Moore, senior research associate at the National Youth Gang Center based in Tallahassee, confirmed for the Washington Post in November that the "Lights Out" story is false: "I know of no incident in the country where this type of thing occurred," he told the Post. "This is one of the wonders of the Internet, that you can take something that has no basis in fact and make people believe it."
A few law enforcement agencies, while maintaining that the rumor is false, were still recommending to the public to play it safe when driving in areas where gang activities take place. They probably feared that growing publicity would spark another copycat occurrence.
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The Face in the Window
As told by Urban Legend Member 58, 08/25/00...
This girl was home all alone watching TV on a cold winter night. The television was right beside a sliding glass door, and the blinds were open.
Suddenly she saw a wrinkled old man staring at her through the glass! She screamed, then grabbed the phone next to the couch and pulled a blanket over her head so the guy couldn't see her while she called the police. She was so terrified that she remained under the blanket until the police got there.
It had snowed a lot during the day, so the police naturally decided to look for footprints. But there were no footprints at all on the snowy ground outside the sliding door.
Puzzled, the police went back inside the house – and that's when they saw the wet footprints on the floor leading up to the couch where the girl was still sitting.
The policemen looked at each other nervously. "Miss, you're extremely lucky," one of them finally said to her.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because," he said, "the man wasn't outside at all. He was in here, standing right behind the couch! What you saw in the window was his reflection."
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