Your Urban Legends Quotient:

According to Bruvand, urban legends "are reported as true individual experiences but that have traditional variants that indicate their legendary character." The following interesting items are from a compilation found on the Internet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban. The group works quite hard to collect and research the origin and veracity of urban legends and common beliefs. Don't be surprised if you hold a few mistaken beliefs, and while debunking mistaken beliefs is fun, the important work occurs when we examine why certain beliefs are held and what happens when a belief we hold true is shown to be false. For example, it is a common "belief that the stained glass windows in medieval cathedrals are thicker at the bottom because the glass flows slowly downward like a very viscous liquid." I have heard students, COS instructors, and good friends make that same claim. Over the years I have learned that it is not always advisable to publicly confront someone's sincere belief. When I now hear someone make the above claim, I simply send them a short email with a few references that discuss the facts of the phenomena. If you are curious about the above belief, you can visit a site that debunks this belief.  Anyway, after reading each claim below, decide whether it is true or false (yes, some are true and some are false). You can find the "correct" answers by looking around the following urban legends site.
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