Two Urban Legends, but still funny

[TxDoc]

#1--

Claim:   A pair of Arkansas rednecks use a .22 caliber shell in place of a burnt-out automobile fuse.

Status:   False.

 

Origins:   In  October 1996, the Internet was left giggling over the hilarious news story of a pair of not-too-bright good ol' boys and truck repairs gone wrong. Combining the key comic elements of trucks, bullets and stupidity, it was a sure winner.

 

Only one problem with it: It didn't happen. It was a fun story dressed up to look like a 25 July 1996 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article, and it fooled a lot of people.

 

It didn't fool the newspaper the fake news item had been attributed to, though. Here's a debunking of the tale by the very paper that supposedly ran the original story:

 

 

A frog-gigging story that reportedly appeared in this newspaper is winding its way around the globe like a chain letter.

Except the story didn't run in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. And from all indications, it's not true.

 

That's not keeping it from circulating the Internet. In fact, the computer network is proving much speedier and far-reaching than most chain letters.

 

Under headings such as "True-Life Redneck Story" and ".22 Cal Ammunition Safety Alert!!" computer users around the United States are passing on the following story (incorrectly listed as appearing in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. July 25):

 

 

Two local men were seriously injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on state Highway 38 early Monday morning. Woodruff County Deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday.

Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center.

 

The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog-gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pickup truck's headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge.

 

After traveling approximately 20 miles and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right, exiting the pavement and striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released.

 

"Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston (shot his intimate parts off) or we might have been dead," stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how the accident happened," said Snyder.

 

Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia, Poole's wife, asked how many frogs the boys had caught, and did anyone get them from the truck.

 

While Lavinia worries over the fate of the frogs, Arkansans worry where the story might have originated.

 

There is no town of Cotton Patch in Woodruff County - it's Cotton Plant. No Deputy Snyder has ever worked for that county's sheriff's department. And attempts at verifying the existence of Wallis and Poole have been futile.

 

Could it have a been an attempt to make Arkansans look stupid?

 

"I accuse a Yankee of it," says one Internet observer.

 

No one has claimed responsibility.

 

 

 

 

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran that piece out of self defence -- they kept getting calls and inquiries about the bullet fuse story, and this seemed the best way to try to put a lid on the spurious story.

 

Where did the tale come from? It was likely a fanciful reworking of an earlier version that had appeared on the Internet in March 1996.

 

 

Dave so-and-so of Anniston, Alabama, was injured recently after he attempted to replace a tubelike fuse in his Chevy pickup with a 22-caliber rifle bullet (used because it was a perfect fit). However, when electricity heated the bullet, it went off and shot him in the knee.

 

 

 

I like the dressed-up telling of it better. Most stories can be improved by tossing in a few hundred frogs.

 

Barbara "it was a dark and froggy night . . ." Mikkelson

 

 

#2--

 

Claim:    A hand-held police radar unit successfully tracked a military aircraft on maneuvers, nearly causing the aircraft to fire a missile in response.

 

Status:   False.

 

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 1999]

 

 

A report has revealed that two traffic patrol officers from North Berwick were involved in an unusual incident whilst checking for speeding motorists on the A1 road between Oldhamstocks and Grantshouse.

 

Last May, they were using a hand-held radar device to trap unwary motorists on the Edinburgh to London trunk road. One of the unnamed officers used the device to check the speed of an approaching vehicle, and was surprised to find that his target had registered a speed in excess of 300 miles per hour. The £5000 machine then seized up and could not be reset by the bemused PC's. The radar had in fact latched on to a NATO Tornado aircraft in the North Sea, which was taking part in a simulated low-flying exercise over the Borders and Southern Scotland.

 

Following a complaint by Sir William Sutherland, Chief Constable of the Lothian & Borders Police force to the RAF liaison office, it was revealed that the officers had a lucky escape - the tactical computer on board the aircraft not only detected and jammed the "hostile" radar equipment, but had automatically armed a Sidewinder air-to-ground missile ready to neutralize the perceived threat. Luckily the Dutch pilot was alerted to the missile status and was able to override the automatic protection system before the missile launched.

 

The Police have so far declined to comment, although it is understood that officers will be advised to point their radar guns inland in future.

 

Origins:   This report has been circulating around the Internet for several years at least. The first sighting I can recall was from around 1995, but it may have appeared somewhat earlier.

 

The story is almost certainly false for a number of highly technical reasons. First off, police radar is relatively weak -- it doesn't need to be strong, and you wouldn't want to fry passing motorists or the police officers who use it daily. These units don't have much range; a few miles or so is sufficient since the police officer needs to be in line-of-sight with the vehicle he’d like to track.

 

Next, a number of different radar types (pulse, continuous-scan, doppler, and so on) are used for different purposes. Doppler radar is used for tracking the speed of an object, whether it's a moving automobile or a particularly threatening thunderstorm. Pulse units are used for aerial and naval navigation as well as military applications; in the latter case their ON/OFF nature makes it slightly more difficult for an enemy to identify their source.

 

Additionally, there are different types of scan profiles in use, such as circular, unidirectional, bi-directional, helical, raster, palmer, conical, and track-while-scan. Police radar units are directional ones that send pulses in a relatively narrow cone in the direction the officer points the device. (This type of radar is used to prevent the operators from being exposed to the devices' high-frequency radiation over long periods of time.) Therefore, it's pretty unlikely that an officer pointing a hand-held unit at an incoming car would also manage to illuminate a flying aircraft -- an intervening hill, a large building, or even heavy plant growth would block any stray signal.

 

Surface-to-air missile (SAM) radars behave differently than handheld police units. Also, each type or model of radar gives off very specific characteristics, and the onboard systems in military planes can differentiate among these types of threats (e.g., a SAM-2 vs. a ZSU vs. an F-16). To quote from Info-Strategies’ web site, "Every radar produces a radio frequency (RF) signal with specific characteristics that differentiate it from all other signals and define its capabilities and limitations." Excepting a case of incredible coincidence, the police radar wouldn't be on the "threat" list. Also, SAM radar units are also relatively short range systems (30-50km), since the usual practice is to employ longer-range tracking stations to keep watch on incoming aircraft, then alert the SAM unit in the aircraft’s flight path of the impending arrival of the hostile plane.

 

Building on the above, we also need to remember that radar is in common use all over the world, and Europe sports some densely-packed airspace. All aircraft are tracked by large, fixed stations in order to prevent mid-air collisions and other accidents. Thus, the Tornado in question was most likely being "painted" by multiple radar stations at various airports around the UK, and possibly also from the continent. A puny police traffic-enforcement radar signal wouldn’t even be noticed in all the noise.

 

Next, and very important to our understanding of this legend, the systems on military aircraft will not automatically arm and fire offensive ordnance. This is the case to specifically prevent incidents such as the one described in this story. There's no way that the Tornado's systems would auto-arm a missile, much less try to fire it without a human "go" signal. At any rate, a human operator in a non-wartime situation would need explicit permission to fire at an enemy position; if the pilot in our story was alerted of a possible "threat" radar signal by an onboard system, he or she could simply confirm the source by checking the direction from which the signal was emanating. As the police unit was outside any military firing range it would be obvious from the start that the signal was not a threat or was merely a spurious contact.

 

Lastly, there are glaring factual errors in the story itself. The "Sidewinder" is a heat-seeking air-to-air missile (AAM) designed for short-range strikes against attacking aircraft. In other variants of the story, an "ASRAAM" (also a heat-seeking AAM) is mentioned. Neither would ever be used against a ground-based target; instead an ALARM (Air-Launched Anti-Radar Missile), AGM-65A "Maverick," or AS.30(L) air-to-surface missile (ASM) would be fired. Also, the act of "jamming" radar does not involve disabling the unit itself, but rather forces it to produce inaccurate or widely fluctuating results (or no results at all) in order to confuse the operator and any incoming missiles are attempting to "lock" onto the target.

 

This urban legend seems to be a classic "warning against technology" tale, cautioning us against the development of systems that could somehow escape human control and cause havoc. Compare this tale with Cruise Control , in which a misunderstanding of the operation of an automotive device leads to a serious accident. Also think of the Y2K craze, or even to recent stories of the purported existence of an automated "Armageddon" system called "Dead Hand" in Russia (which was supposedly about to fire all Soviet missiles on 1/1/2000 after the computers failed). All are about our fear of modern technology and how a possible lack of human control in a given situation spells disaster.

[Kania2k1]

Lewis Black actually read that first article on his last C.D., thought it was pretty funny then, but now, not so funny.  But to hear Lewis tell it, it's still great!

[General Lee 01]

Claim:    A hand-held police radar unit successfully tracked a military aircraft on maneuvers, nearly causing the aircraft to fire a missile in response.

 

Naw, That was CMNT's Camaro, but yeah, he still almost fired a missle at them.