E-mail Hoaxes: Old Stories in New Packaging

May 25, 2007— -- It's the campfire tale that haunts your sleep, the story that makes you peer into the back seat of your car before opening the driver's door on a dark night, or the reason you leave the kitchen while the microwave runs.

Dark, twisted, pseudoscientific and deliciously appealing, urban legends have become our version of modern day folklore, and with the aid of instant communication through e-mail and the Internet, they've taken on a life of their own.

Just ask Cpl. Jefferson Davenport at the Pennsylvania State Police Academy. An e-mail with Davenport's name attached that warned drivers not to flash their headlights at oncoming cars that didn't have their headlights on left his phone ringing off the hook and prompted an internal investigation by the Pennsylvania State Police.

Drivers might find themselves unwitting targets of a Bloods initiation game, the e-mail warned. The Bloods are a gang, and the story goes that new recruits would shoot and kill the first motorist that does them the courtesy of flashing the lights.

Unable to to keep up with the calls, Davenport ended up putting up a voice mail that told anxious callers, "If you are calling about the recent urban legend, it's not true."

Davenport had replied to someone who had e-mailed asking about the urban legend to tell the person it wasn't true, Pennsylvania State Police public information officer Linette Quinn told ABC News.

Davenport's e-mail was then altered to show only the description of the rumor and then forwarded. The rest is urban legend history.

"It's good that people are actually checking with us to see if the rumor is true," said Quinn. "But we've asked them to please delete the e-mail before forwarding it on."

"Most urban legends have some small basis in fact," Richard Newtson, a professor of sociology at Columbus State University told ABC News. "These stories play on our collective fears and prejudices."