(This column was first published in the April 1, 2002 Buffalo News.)
On April 1 each year I celebrate this day of mischief
by devoting my column to pseudoscience. Over the years I have considered tall
tales like Piltdown Man, the Cardiff Giant and the Mars effect, and also what
Bob Parks has so well-named voodoo science. This year I adopt a more
light-hearted approach to share a few urban legends.
An urban legend is defined by the Urban Legend
Research Centre in Australia to be "usually
a good,
captivating, titillating, engrossing, incredible or worrying story that has had
a wide audience, is circulated spontaneously, has been told in several forms,
and which many have chosen to believe (whether actively or passively) despite
the lack of actual evidence to substantiate the story."
Notice in that definition that urban legends are not
necessarily false. They range, however, from silly to at least possible.
Here are some of my current favorites:
A seeing eye dog, in one version named
"Lucky", was responsible for the deaths of several of his owners. He
led one off a pier, another in front of a bus, a third off a train platform
just as the engine was pulling into the station.
Hearing that the dog was to be assigned to still
another blind person, reporters descended on the training school. One asked if
the next owner was to be informed of the dog's previous history. The trainer
responded that he would not expose the dog's checkered past as he didn't want
to make the new owner nervous.
Some of these stories are even supposed to have taken
place locally, in one version of the next: "in a small rural town,
somewhat northeast of the city of Niagara Falls."
The town's volunteer fire department was called out
to rescue a cat from a tree. Unfortunately the tall willow in which the cat was
perched would not support the extension ladder carried on the rescue truck.
Faced with this quandary, one of the firefighters
suggested bending the pliable tree limb down so that they could reach the cat.
To implement this suggestion one of them climbed about half-way up to the kitty
and secured a rope to the tree. The other end was fastened to the bumper of
their truck.
The truck was slowly backed away, bringing the branch
closer and closer to the outstretched arms of one of the firefighters, but just
before the cat came within reach, the knot slipped free under the strain. The
story concludes: The cat was last seen airborne heading south toward the city
of Niagara Falls.
Then there is the story of the hunter who shot a huge
buck. He decided that he would take a photograph on the spot. He propped up the
deer, lay his rifle in its big rack and then backed off to take the picture.
The one photograph he managed to click showed the deer rising to dash off into the
forest carrying his rifle.
And finally, there is the family whose dog proudly
carried home dead their neighbor's pet rabbit. Concerned about being blamed,
they carefully took the filthy animal from the dog and cleaned it up. They then
sneaked into the neighbor's yard to replace the bunny in its cage. Shortly
after this the neighbor appeared at their door to tell them: "Our rabbit
died yesterday and we buried it, but someone dug it up, gave it a shampoo and
stuck it back in its cage."
Yes, some of those urban legends might have happened.
For more I recommend Barbara and
David Mikkelson's website and Jan Harold Brunvand's
book: Too Good to be True.-- Gerry Rising