---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gypsy Testicle-Snatching Ring
Forwarded by Reid Tate:
Subject: PLEASE FORWARD TO ANYONE YOU KNOW IN THE SOUTHEAST!!
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 11:32:39 -0500
From: SA John Stump <jstump@fbi.gov>
To: [Recipient addresses deleted]
***For Immediate Release****
VC#4231-656732 REF#34GA37852 03/02/1999
UNITED STATES FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS
Director:
Louis J. Freeh
Headquarters Address:
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20535-0001
Telephone:
(202) 324-3000
ACTION: The agency has become aware of a group of gypsies operating in the southeast.
These gypsies are in the employ of the Chinese Communist Party. THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR UP TO 70 CASES OF TESTICLE MUTILATION.
RESULT: The Bureaus investigation into this matter has developed the following profile:
Any male travelling alone in the southeast is at risk. Do not attempt to take unknown women of Turkish descent to your room. Do not attempt to engage any type of sexual behavior with unknown Turkish women.
CASE: These women are responsible for over 70 testicle mutilation cases. They are all very intelligent and should be considered armed and dangerous. By the use of their female attributes, they lure men into positions of seclusion. At this point, they will drug, then remove the testicles of the unsuspecting men. Our investigation has determined that caucasion, black, and hispanic testicles are being sold in China as a form of aphrodesiac. NO ONE HAS LOST HIS LIFE IN THIS WAY. The serious loss of blood is dangerous but should not lead to death.
IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE BEEN A VICTIM OF THIS CRIME, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR NEAREST FBI FIELD OFFICE.
EMAIL VER. 2.11 WWW.FBI.GOV ROUTE 32GASCVANCTNAL23053
Guide's note: Truly, if you think you've been a victim of this crime, do contact your nearest FBI field office. And let us know what they say.
Also, if anyone knows the whereabouts of Special Agent "John Stump" (ouch!), please inform him that his email address is not recognized by the FBI mail server.
Thank you, and be careful out there...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grand(ma) Larceny
01/14/00 - A friend of mine knows a family who were on vacation, driving through some remote part of the country in their station wagon. They had brought Grandma along even though she was not feeling well, because she didn't want to miss the trip.
Unfortunately, at some point during the long drive, Grandma passed away in the back seat of the car. The two children sitting next to her became hysterical.
Since they were far from the nearest city, the father did the only thing he could think of to remedy the situation – he wrapped Grandma's body in a blanket and secured it to the luggage rack on top of the car.
When they finally reached a gas station, everyone clambered out of the station wagon while the father called authorities to report the death. He didn't realize he had left the keys in the ignition.
When the family went back to the car, they found it had been stolen along with all their possessions... and Grandma.
* * *
If that story sounds familiar, it may be because it's a very common FOAF (friend of a friend) tale dating as far back as World War II. Folklorist Duncan Emrich reported a variant of it in his 1972 book, Folklore on the American Land, and it has appeared in several collections since.
On the other hand, you may have read something strikingly similar to it in your local newspaper last month.
The Associated Press dispatched a brief item in early December about an incident that supposedly happened in the former U.S.S.R. According to the story, a pair of Moldavan cousins living in Ukraine, too poor to afford a funeral for their dead grandmother, rolled up her corpse in a rug and strapped it to the top of their car to be taken home to Moldava for burial.
When the cousins stopped for a meal at a restaurant in southern Ukraine, thieves made off with their car... and Grandma.
This story ran in U.S. papers on December 9, including the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, which gave it the headline, "Thieves Take Rug – and Grandma's Corpse."
Enter Jan Harold Brunvand, professor emeritus at the University of Utah and author of more than half a dozen books on urban legends, including the marvelous volume Too Good to Be True, published in 1999.
Brunvand authored a letter to the editor which appeared in the Deseret News 3 weeks after the AP story ran. It began: "Oh, come on, editor!"
It continued: "Surely you didn't believe that AP story you published on Page A14 of the Dec. 9 Deseret News about the missing Moldovan granny. This is nothing but the old 'Runaway Grandmother' urban legend that has been told worldwide for decades."
In fact, as Brunvand pointed out, the legend had appeared in one of his own columns in the Deseret News in 1987, entitled "Grandma's Fit to Be Tied – to the Luggage Rack."
Did the Deseret News and the Associated Press bite on an old urban legend? Are some stories really too good to be true?
Read the full text of Brunvand's letter and more about the legend at the Urban Legends Reference Pages, and see if you agree with the good professor.
...I do.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------