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#6
08-23-2010, 01:26 PM
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5. The Good Samaritan
 The Good Samaritan legend has been around for years, and it’s been attributed to a number of famous rich people, from Bill Gates to Nat King Cole. As the story goes, a motorist stops to help a man change a flat tire. The man asks for the motorist’s address so that he might send a reward. A few weeks later, the motorist receives a thank you note in the mail with a check for $10,000 signed by a famous celebrity. The story tends to vary depending on whom the grateful celebrity is, with one popular version claiming that Donald Trump paid off a helpful stranger’s mortgage. Trump himself has even tried to confirm this, but all proof points to it being nothing more than an often-repeated rumor. 
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#7
08-23-2010, 01:26 PM
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4. Walt Disney Is Cryogenically Frozen
 This is another rumor that’s been around for a long time, and it seems that everyone has heard it at some point or another. It says that Walt Disney arranged for his body to frozen upon his death in the hope that future technology would be able to bring him back to life. No one’s exactly sure how this one got started, but records show that Disney was cremated when he died in 1966. It is suspected that the amount of secrecy surrounding his funeral, coupled with his reputation as an inventor, led to the creation of this long-standing myth.
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#8
08-23-2010, 01:27 PM
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3. The Sewer Alligator
 This story, one of the most popular of all urban legends, asserts that the New York City sewer system is infested with deadly alligators. In the most popular versions, the animals were brought north from Florida by people who wanted to keep them as pets. When the gators started getting too big and violent, they were released into the sewers. This story dates back to the 1930s, when sensationalist newspapers started reporting countless stories of alligators being found in and around New York City, with some even claiming that police were making regular trips underground to hunt the creatures down. Nearly all of these stories are false, and the few that are true almost undoubtedly concern animals that escaped from local zoos, but the sewer alligator story has continued to be passed down through the years, and it still exists today in many different forms.
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#9
08-23-2010, 01:29 PM
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2. The Vanishing Hitchhiker
 One of the oldest and most often repeated urban legends, the vanishing hitchhiker story comes in many forms. The most popular version involves a man who picks up a young hitchhiker (usually a girl) on a deserted country road. He drives her to her house, but when he turns to say goodbye he finds that she has inexplicably disappeared from the back seat of the car. Confused, the man rings the doorbell of the house, whereupon he learns that the girl has been dead for years, ****ed in a car accident on the very spot where he picked her up that night. There are a number of variations of this story, and it dates back so far that earlier versions take place on horseback or in covered wagons.
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#10
08-23-2010, 01:30 PM
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1. The Kidney Heist
The most ubiquitous and persistent urban legend, “the kidney heist” story has been immortalized on the internet, TV shows, and even a few movies. It supposedly dates back to 1997, when an e-mail started circulating warning people of a new and frightening crime that was catching on in some cities. In most versions, a business traveler is relaxing in a bar when a stranger strikes up a conversation and then offers to by them a drink. After taking a few sips, the traveler becomes woozy and then blacks out, only to awaken in a hotel room bathtub covered with ice. There is a phone next to them, and a note that says to call 911 immediately. When the paramedics arrive, the person learns that their kidney has been harvested by people who hope to sell it on the back market. This story is completely false, but it has been circulating for years, and its appearance on the internet is one of the oldest e-mail hoaxes. In order to quell the rumor, The National Kidney Foundation has even asked supposed victims of the crime to contact them, but to this date they haven’t had any takers. A scary tale, but still an urban legend.
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