To not point out story is an urban legend?

[StingLikeA]

I was in a group earlier of parents of DC's friends at a party. We were chatting away and one of them told an urban legend story (stealing a penguin from the zoo if that's relevant). I just went 'oh really ha ha' and moved the subject on as it felt really awkward.

Would you have politely pointed out that the story was a crock of shit to avoid them repeating it again? AIBU to have ignored it and presumably let them keep on telling it?

Has anyone else been told one of these face to face?

They treated everyone listening as stupid, expecting them to believe the tall tale.

You treated everyone listening as stupid, by pointing out the tall tale. You also treated the tale-teller rudely by humiliating them at a social gathering.

Both you and the tale teller have social anxiety and do not know how to behave outside of the home.

Mackenzie Crook used that in Small Prophets recently!

Why would it make you annoyed? Its just story telling for entertainment. Id give an eye roll if i heard one but getting irrationally angry is a bit extreme. Its mostly kids at school that tell these stories. I remember the Mc Chicken sandwich abscess one and also the Richard gere hamster one. There was another doing the rounds bizarrely that Stan Laurel was Clint Eastwoods dad!

Oh the dead girl on the train one. A colleague told me it happened to her best friend, she completely believed her.

For those who don’t know it. A ticket collector tells a young women late at night that her ticket isn’t valid and she has to leave at next station. She panics but once she is off the police rush on. The ticket collector had noticed that a women a few rows back wasn’t asleep she was dead (stabbed normally) and two men where transporting the body

😞

There was another doing the rounds bizarrely that Stan Laurel was Clint Eastwoods dad!

OMG I’d forgotten that one.

And Bob Holness played the saxophone on Baker Street.

Is this the one you're thinking of?

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/craflwyn-and-beddgelert/discover-the-legend-of-gelert

If so, definitely a rural legend rather than an urban one! 😅

The one we had at school was the female babysitter receiving weird threatening calls and reported it to the police; they rang her back and told her to get out of the house immediately because the calls were coming from the upstairs phone. I think they've made it into a film now.

Don't know what happened ti the children she was babysitting!

If you don’t like the person go for it. Otherwise keep quiet.

I'm an idiot. I misread it, as you pointing it out (because "Oh, really?" can sound agreeable, or question, but the fault is all mine, as I didn;t read the thread title properly either) Sorry. You DID NOT point it out. Good for you and you were kind to move the conversation on.

A midwife told me the same story around 25 years ago, but it was an about large shopping centre not John Lewis. She was very earnest and said it in all honesty to warn me that it was going on there. God knows who told her.

Then a friend told me the same thing years later but about Disneyland! No idea where it started or even if the original story was true.

It reminds me of the other story which was doing the rounds a few years ago. A couple would hang around shopping centres inviting lone women to smell a new perfume. The “perfume” turned out to be chloroform which knocked the woman out so she could be kidnapped. I think I had an email about it, before social media existed.

Not sure who all these kidnap victims are or what happened to them!

Yeah, she’s lying though?

i remember TWENTY YEARS AGO a friend of mine told me this happened to her mum’s friend… I didn’t say anything but I’d already read it on snopes.

It’s one of the ancient texts 😆

They were probably just trying to amuse you.
It's quite a generous thing to try to make people laugh.

Can anybody remember the dead dog the suitcase?

I heard about this one too! I'm nowhere near London so it was a case of 'insert your nearest big city'. Am pretty sure my mum told me this one at the time.

And Bob Holness played the saxophone on Baker Street.

What? You mean he didn’t? 😱😮

One of the worst things I’ve noticed in the social media age is this pattern - someone spreads a rumour, usually a mutated urban myth, which goes around on social media. Because the rumour could potentially have a big impact on people IF it were true, local police put out a warning about it. Other people then see the police have mentioned it and therefore it MUST be true because they think it’s been investigated and proven as true, when that’s not what happened at all. Killer clowns and red vs blue schools spring to mind as two recent examples of this. Also, because it’s been spread around so much there will always be people who then hop on the bandwagon and eg dress up as a clown which further provides “proof” for the hard of thinking.

I wish police forces were more proactive about saying these things are a pile of shit that’s been made up entirely, but they never do.

The PPs comment about penguins did make me chuckle. I can well believe there are penguin thefts as part of organised crime but I can't see school children routinely being able to steal penguins and get them back to the coach or whatever because as PP pointed out 'They don't want to go in bags'

The Boa sizing up for dinner one was told to us as 11 year olds by our science teacher! Of all people 🤦 over 20 years ago now.

The one I did hear as a teen and could never completely be convinced it was or wasn't true was the girl babysitting a baby in the early 90s, everytime she went downstairs the baby would scream. She eventually rang the parents to say the 6ft clown in the corner was unsettling the baby but the parents are horrified to say there is no 6ft clown in their house and it was an intruder. I mean it's an urban legend but someone had to have thought it up in the first place...

I was genuinely on a school trip where a small monkey was smuggled onto the bus by one of the boys. It was discovered before we left the car park.
The school was banned from returning. There was a lot of trouble and a very painful assembly for all of us.

😂 love this one! Where we lived it was a puppy she found on the street who wasn’t gaining weight and she took it to the vet and it turned out to be a Cambodian rat who had climbed on a ship which ended up in the north of England

The kidnapped child story happened in Tesco here. Although it's also happened at Disneyland Paris. Naturally the kidnappers were often Muslims who dressed the child in a burka, sometimes 'Eastern European men' who cut the girls hair to make her look like a boy. It happens a lot apparently!

We were told one at school which I believed for years, but assume isn't true.
A woman who was driving alone in the dark through some woodland stooped as there was a body shaped bundle in the road. She got out the car, moved it as it wasn't a body and got back in the car. Another car had come up behind her and basically drove bumper to bumper with her which was of course terrifying. So instead of going home she drove to her parents house and pulled into the driveway beeping her horn until her father came out. The other car was still right behind her. Of course her dad went to the other car to ask wtf they were playing at. When she got out the car to check the bundle in the road a man had climbed in the back. Luckily the 2nd car saw it happen

This terrified 11 year old me!

You often see this sort of thing as clickbait on Facebook in unrelated articles “when the vet saw it he turned white and called the police”

Haha that's exactly the one I was thinking of reading this! Friends ex boyfriend recounted it having happened to his mum.

I was coming on to say a variation of this one. I believed it when I first heard, because it was told to me by a very sensible, educated friend who was a headteacher. She said it happened to her NCT friend's sister and child in David Jones department store. She was horrified, so clearly believed it herself. I was like "why the hell hasn't this been all over the news??"

I then heard a variation a year or two later and realised it must be an urban legend.

Lol lol lol