Don't believe it: Skeptics find no truth in Sept. 11 rumors forwarded in e-mail

09/27/2001

By DOUG BEDELL / The Dallas Morning News

Internet rumors and hoaxes have found new life with the tragic events of Sept. 11.

Some, like those involving bogus predictions of Nostradamus and symbols in Microsoft's Wingdings font, are recycled folklore. Others – including doctored photos of the World Trade Center and rumors that CNN used 1991 footage to show Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks – are originals.

For those who investigate and debunk urban legends and Internet hoaxes, the last week has been as taxing to their Web servers as it has been on their time.

Debunking urban legends and Net hoaxes
Without researching the factual claims made in a forwarded e-mail, there's no 100 percent sure way to tell it if it's a hoax, but there are common signs:
• Note whether the text was actually written by the person who sent it to you. If not, be skeptical.
• Look for the telltale phrase: "Forward this to everyone you know."
• Look for statements like "This is not a hoax" or "This is not an urban legend." They usually mean the opposite.
• Look for overly emphatic language, the frequent use of uppercase letters and multiple exclamation points.
• Be suspicious if the message seems geared more to persuade than to inform or if the message purports to give you extremely important information that you've never heard of before or seen elsewhere in legitimate venues.
• Read carefully and think critically about what the message says, looking for logical inconsistencies, violations of common sense and obviously false claims.
• Look for subtle or not-so-subtle jokes, indications that the author is pulling your leg.
• Check for references to outside sources. Hoaxes will not typically name any nor link to Web sites with corroborating information.
• Check to see if the message has been debunked by Web sites that cover Internet hoaxes, such as hoaxbusters.ciac.org.
• Be skeptical of virtually any chain e-mail you receive (i.e., any message forwarded multiple times). It's more likely to be false.
• Be wary of "reports" that mimic a journalistic style or attribute text to "legitimate" sources.
• Be especially wary of health-related rumors. Most importantly, never act on this type of rumor without first verifying its accuracy with your doctor or other reliable source.

SOURCE: Urban Legends and Folklore Guide

Some, such as the Urban Legends Reference Pages (www. snopes2.com), are handling 500,000 Web visitors a day, forcing curtailment of graphics, advertising and message board features that add to the load.

"We've been just getting hammered by the traffic," said Barbara Mikkelson, who runs the Urban Legends site with her Web designer husband, David.

David Emery, a volunteer who has run About.com's Urban Legends and Folklore (urbanlegends. about.com) for four years, said his normal e-mail flow has ballooned from about 50 per day to more than 200.

"The majority of them contain rumors and e-mail folklore directly related to the tragedy," Mr. Emery said. "I can't say the amount of material is increasing at this point, but it certainly hasn't tapered off."

Evidence of the American preoccupation with war-related rumors was graphically demonstrated last week when "Nostradamus" replaced "sex" as the No. 1 search term on some top search engines.

"Nostradamus received more searches in one week than any other subject [since we began tracking it] two years ago," Aaron Shatz of the Lycos 50 Daily Report told The Associated Press. "Nostradamus was misspelled in more than 100 ways and received 12.5 times as many searches as former Number 1, Dragonball [a Japanese animated cartoon], which fell to Number 8."

The Mikkelsons and other debunkers have gone to elaborate lengths to search out the sources of the Nostradamus predictions. Some of the quotations skittering through e-mail channels are traceable, they said, to a Web page erected to show how easily Nostradamus' prophecies can be massaged into compelling predictions of cataclysmic events.

Other Sept. 11-related hoaxes are far more troubling. They include:

• Fictitious requests from NASA that people step out on their lawns with lit candles at a specified hour so that a satellite picture can be made to capture the nation's unity.

• Bogus news accounts linking Osama bin Laden to the production of gum Arabic, an emulsifier in soft drinks and other commercial products.

• The CNN footage rumor, which sparked so many inquiries that the network, its stringers and those who filed the film report issued detailed accounts of the filming and how it was acquired.

• E-mail reports that a deadly "Klingerman virus" is being dispersed via U.S. mail on blue sponges sent to random American homes. This hoax was first debunked in May 2000.

Several of the latest hoaxes involve photo manipulations, a new type of Internet contrivance.

One photograph shows a tourist standing on the 110th floor observation deck of the World Trade Center. Behind him is a commercial jet that appears to be approaching impact just below.

Photo manipulations represent a new way of blurring the lines between truth and reality, but they are equally damaging, debunkers said.

The debunkers continually warn Internet users to be skeptical of frightening or unusual reports they pass around to friends and family. But no matter how many warnings are issued, rumors and hoaxes persist.

"This is a very difficult time for everybody," said Mrs. Mikkelson. "It's a time of heightened emotion and, therefore, lowered common sense. Crisis brings people together and produces more rumors because we're talking more."

The Internet, of course, has made communication faster and easier for millions.

"On the one hand, it's a wonderful thing that we don't just have to rely on CNN and The New York Times to find out what's going on in the world," Mr. Emery said. "On the other, we're still learning – and it's very important that we learn – how unreliable the information that comes to us via e-mail and the Net can be."

At various times in America's history, state and federal governments have actually set up rumor control centers to refute prevalent hoaxes. Generally, Mr. Emery said, such efforts have failed.

"One reason rumor-mongering is rampant is that we don't always trust authorities to tell us the truth," Mr. Emery said. "Sometimes we don't even trust the media to tell us the truth, and so you see rumors functioning as a sort of shadow news whereby people share – or think they're sharing – the untold truth.

"A lot of people have an itchy forward finger, not even bothering to think twice before shooting off unverified rumors to everyone they know."

Ironically, the Internet is also capable of quickly yielding the information needed to assess whether a rumor has any basis.

"For almost every falsehood transmitted on the Net," Mr. Emery said, "the truth is also there to be found. The challenge, I think, is for people to accept the personal responsibility that implies."