Old School Misinformation - Urban Myths

Before the internet, did you hear any urban myths and factless rumours? What were they?

Here are some I remember:

Mikey (a kid in a popular cereal commercial) died of eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke at the same time.
Rod Stewart had his stomach pumped after collapsing during a concert and they found dog semen in his stomach contents.
Richard Gere got a gerbil stuck up his ass.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

The microwaved dog was one. (Allegedly its owner having shampooed it, tried to dry it in the oven, killing it; then sued the oven manufacturer.)

One that circulated among the more romantic of railway enthusiasts in 1960s Britain, when British Railways was scrapping steam-locomotives with indecent haste, was the existence of a governmentally-ordered "strategic reserve" of them hidden in military bases and the like.

A railway journalist investigated and found it nonsense, created by enthusiasts finding supposed gaps in the withdrawal records. I recall his report, in a railway magazine, commented that it only takes some rusty railway lines, barbed-wire fences and imaginations.....

.
There is nothing new in all this. At much larger scales, think of the Renaissance-era alchemists, the 17C "witch-hunt" atrocities, the 18C South Sea Bubble stock-market crash.

Or more artificial but basically harmless ones like the 19C "Cottingley Fairies" and the Mary Celest puzzle, both stirred up by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and the 20C scribblings of Erik von Daniken....

DrWatson · 70-79, M

@ArishMell

Well of course the microwaved dog story was fake.

I, on the other hand, distinctly remember the story of the microwaved cat....😂

JimboSaturn · 51-55, M

@DrWatson I think I heard the cat one on this side of the pond.

LordShadowfire · 46-50, M

@DrWatson The version I heard was that the cat was left outside and was hypothermic, so they tried to save its life by putting it in the microwave.

DrWatson · 70-79, M

@LordShadowfire That sounds familiar.