David Emery's Urban Legends Blog

If you haven't heard of the medical scourge known as "fan death," you're not from South Korea. Or Canada, for that matter, where isolated rumblings about the dangers of running an electric fan in a closed room have apparently begun to surface as well.

As reported in the Toronto Star, an English teacher at the University of New Brunswick described a bewildering experience she had last winter after telling students she planned to bring an electric fan into the unventilated classroom to alleviate the stuffiness caused by keeping the windows closed during freezing weather.

If you do that, a Korean student warned, it will lower your body temperature, and you'll die. Some other Korean immigrants interviewed by The Star echoed the sentiment.

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The closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing were barely over when a missive arrived in my inbox sporting a list of 10 on-air bloopers allegedly made by NBC sports commentators.

"He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it," one announcer supposedly said. "In fact you can see it all over their faces."

"Julian Dicks is everywhere," another was quoted as saying. "It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field."

Nevermind that Julian Dicks is a British soccer player who retired some years ago and never played in any Olympic Games, let alone in 2008. It's the punchline that counts.

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Contrary to recurring rumors, 62-year-old country singer Dolly Parton has not died of congestive heart failure. According to her representatives she is alive and well, having performed in concert as recently as August 17 in Dollywood, Parton's namesake theme park in Tennessee. Read more...

Nick Mediati and Anne B. McDonald have compiled a fun, if idiosyncratic, list of "Eight Crazy E-Mail Hoaxes Millions Have Fallen For" for the current edition of PC World. Most of the items will be familiar to Urban Legends readers, including the ubiquitous Bill Gates Is Sharing His Fortune chain letter and those annoying Confidential Business Proposal (aka "Nigerian scam") emails.

Cell Phone Popcorn is on the list representing viral videos, and ye olde Bonsai Kitten petition reminds us all that you can't trust everything you read on the Web (and never could).

A couple of amusing parodies are included: the Ban DHMO email, warning of the life-threatening hazards of (gasp!) water, and the WORK Virus warning ("Send this message to everyone in your address book. If you do not have anyone in your address book, then I'm afraid the 'work' virus has already corrupted your life"). They aren't hoaxes, strictly speaking, but God knows they've fooled enough speed readers to deserve their spots on the list.

You can read the rest on PCWorld.com. It's not unlike visiting some old, annoying acquaintances. Have fun!

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An anonymous email advises drivers to lock their car doors manually instead of using a wireless remote key because thieves have supposedly figured out how to "clone" the security codes transmitted by such devices and use them to steal and rob vehicles.

Interestingly enough, this wouldn't have been far from the truth had it been written a dozen or more years ago, before remote keyless entry systems were encrypted. More...

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The outfit responsible for last Friday's press conference promising scientific proof that Bigfoot exists has admitted the whole thing was a hoax.

According to SearchingforBigfoot.com impresario Tom Biscardi, the two men who approached him last month claiming they possessed the frozen carcass of a 7-foot-tall ape-like thingamajiggy from the backwoods of Georgia were frauds. Investigators thawed the hairy corpse over the weekend and determined it to be, as many had suspected, a Halloween costume. Confronted with the ruse, the perpetrators skipped town with an undisclosed sum Biscardi had given them as an advance on marketing and promotional revenues.

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A chain email circulating since the end of June asks for prayers for Katie Fitch, a 3-year-old girl in South Carolina suffering from hepatoblastoma, a form a liver cancer primarily found in young children. At last report, her tumor was shrinking thanks to aggressive chemotherapy, though the family also attributes Katie's progress to the prayers of online strangers. Read more...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bigfoot on Ice.

According to a press release issued yesterday by Searching for Bigfoot Inc., the 7-foot, 7-inch-tall corpse of an ape-like creature found in northern Georgia "may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as 'Bigfoot'." Unceremoniously preserved in a freezer chest, the hairy carcass weighs an estimated 500 pounds. Its footprint measures 16 3/4 inches long. It appears to be part-ape and part-human. A press conference will be held on Friday, August 15 to unveil further details of the discovery (see update below).

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A 10-inch-tall garden gnome missing and believed stolen since last September turned up on the doorstep of its owners in Gloucestershire, England last week, along with a photo album chronicling its "travels" in 12 foreign countries. Eve and Derrick Stuart-Kelso seemed pleased to have their errant lawn ornament home again, though Eve admitted to reporters that she had forgotten in the interval that the plaster leprechaun known to the family as "Murphy" even existed.

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I am told that the Chinese government chose 8:08:08 p.m. on 8/8/08 as the time and date of the Olympic Games opening ceremonies because eight is considered a lucky number in China. That's apparently because "ba," the word for "eight" in Mandarin, sounds so much like "fa," the word for "wealth" or "prosper." Needless to say, gold medal expectations are high.

Also, a great many Chinese couples have reportedly planned their weddings for the auspicious day, and some married couples even went to the trouble of timing the conception of their babies in hopes of scoring an 8/8/08 birthday.

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