Urban Legends - The Art of the Prank

December 3, 2012December 15, 2023

Dracula’s Serbian Cousin

From Linda:

Vampire Threat Terrorizes Serbian Village
by Dragana Jovanovic, Belgrade
ABCnews.go.com
November 29, 2012

For the people in a tiny Serbian village there is nothing sexy or romantic about a vampire. In fact, they are terrified that one of the most feared vampires of the area has been roused back to life.

Rather than ‘Twilight’s’ Edward, the people of Zorazje fear that Sava Savanovic is lurking in their forested mountains of western Serbia.

They believe that he is on the move because the home he occupied for so long, a former water mill, recently collapsed. Savanovic is believed to be looking for a new home.

“People are very worried. Everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else and possibly other victims is terrifying people,” Miodrag Vujetic, local municipal assembly member, told ABC News. “We are all frightened.”

Vujetic said villagers “are all taking precautions by having holy crosses and icons placed above the entrance to the house, rubbing our hands with garlic, and having a hawthorn stake or thorn.”

“I understand that people who live elsewhere in Serbia are laughing at our fears, but here most people have no doubt that vampires exist,” he says. Continue reading “Dracula’s Serbian Cousin”

February 12, 2012December 15, 2023

Bear With Fish Impersonates Wooly Mammoth, Fools Millions

Woolly Mammoth Video From Siberia Faces Credibility Issues
Huffington Post
February 9, 2012

A woolly mammoth has reportedly been seen and videotaped in Siberia, offering irrefutable proof that the giant hairy prehistoric elephants — believed to have gone extinct thousands of years ago — still exist.

That is, of course, if this new video shows an actual mammoth crossing a Siberian river. According to The Sun, a government engineer, conducting a survey for a potential new road last summer, saw the beast in question in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia.

He supposedly filmed the creature. And here is where so many questions come to mind: Continue reading “Bear With Fish Impersonates Wooly Mammoth, Fools Millions”

February 11, 2012December 15, 2023

The Mary Todd Lincoln Portrait Fraud

Mrs. Lincoln, I Presume? Well, as It Turns Out …
by Patricia Cohen
The New York Times
February 11, 2012

For 32 years, a portrait of a serene Mary Todd Lincoln hung in the governor”s mansion in Springfield, Ill., signed by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, a celebrated painter who lived at the White House for six months in 1864.

The story behind the picture was compelling: Mrs. Lincoln had Mr. Carpenter secretly paint her portrait as a surprise for the president, but he was assassinated before she had a chance to present it to him.

Now it turns out that both the portrait and the touching tale accompanying it are false.

Continue reading “The Mary Todd Lincoln Portrait Fraud”

November 5, 2011December 15, 2023

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Bonfires, fireworks mark Guy Fawkes Day in the UK
Associated Press
November 5, 2011

London (AP) – Children and the young at heart across Britain are preparing fireworks and building bonfires to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day.

Fawkes plotted with other conspirators to blow up Parliament with explosives and install a Catholic monarch in the botched “Gunpowder Plot” of 1605.

The failure of the plot is remembered every year on Nov. 5 with fireworks and the burning of effigies known as “guys”.

Although not widely known outside Britain, the folk hero’s story has recently been gaining attention worldwide because many protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement wore a stylized Guy Fawkes mask.

The design of the mask, with a clownish and sinister mustachioed smile, originated from the comic book “V for Vendetta,” a story about an anarchist movement.

April 1, 2011December 15, 2023

Successful people who never existed

From Don:

Successful people who never existed
by Adam K. Raymond
CNN via Mental Floss
April 1, 2011

(via Mental Floss) — The dream student

George P. Burdell was a man born of a simple mistake. In 1927, someone in the admissions office at Georgia Tech accidentally sent student Ed Smith two registration forms instead of one.

Sensing an opportunity for mischief, Smith filled out one form for himself and the other for George P. Burdell — a student he completely made up. When Smith arrived at school, he kept the ruse going by enrolling Burdell in all of his classes and even turning in assignments under his name.

In fact, Smith did so much work on behalf of his imaginary friend that Burdell eventually graduated. When other students found out about the hoax, they helped keep Burdell’s story going. Continue reading “Successful people who never existed”