fake facts

I’m a big fan of urban legends. Well. Okay. I’m a big fan of debunking urban legends. (Stop the bunking!) I don’t do much actual debunkment myself, rather I tend to inform people when what they are telling me is an urban legend or where they can go to learn if I am really risking my life by flashing my headlights at the moron driving at midnight without his lights because it’s a known fact! that gangs in LA drive around town with their lights off just waiting for someone to flash them so they can kill them as part of a gang initiation … So I got quite a giggle and smirk attack while reading things that might be true (but aren’t).

Disney Myths
(or, More Debunking Fun)
Claim: The closure and removal of Disneyland’s Skyway in November of 1994 was prompted by a guest’s having fallen from the ride several months earlier.
Status: False.

Claim: Several guests have lost their lives on various Disneyland attractions.
Status: True.

Claim: One of the castle spires on the cover of Disney’s The Little Mermaid home video was deliberately drawn as a phallus by a disgruntled artist.
Status: False.

Has anyone ever died while riding Space Mountain?
You’ve probably heard the rumor that a passenger was decapitated while riding Space Mountain Anaheim. This is Urban Legend; people have died while riding the attraction before, but their deaths have been caused by such things as heart attacks (it is fairly well accepted that one such death in Paris was due to a heart attack). One version of this story has that a test dummy in the Orlando Space Mountain was the thing which lost a head.