Well, this may not be the hour for the faint-hearted for those of you who have some treasured beliefs that you have. Had for your entire lifetime Our Guest today is a man who's looked into an awful lot of some rather common widely held Notions and found that many of them are not true. Paul Dixon is the co-author along with Joseph golden of a book called there are alligators in our sewers and other American credos. It is subtitled a collection of bunk nonsense and fables. We believe just looking at the back of the book a couple of examples of things that seem very plausible but really are not true at all lightning never strikes twice in the same place that the Baby Ruth candy bar was named for Babe Ruth the baseball player that the holiday season brings on depression in a large number of people not true not true. My goodness. Well, well well research not true. Ah, it seems to be a wire service tradition to run a story a couple weeks before the holidays talking about the holiday blahs. The blues but one notable study was done at Ohio State where they checked all of the admissions all the normal variables that would indicate high level of depression voluntary admission in a mental hospital psychiatric visits that kind of thing and found that people are just as likely to get the Press on the fourth of July or whenever hmm and that it's really a sort of a figment of a an idea that somebody had that gee I bet people get depressed this time of year and then they go out and get a couple quotes figment of a news editors. Imagine. Yeah for goodness sakes. How did you happen to come upon compiling this book? Anyway? Well, my co-author and I are are great HL Mencken Buffs. I guess that's a good word for it. In fact, Joe was my co-author on this thing. I had actually done a book on Lincoln and for years, we always loved it's a very today people don't recall it too much but a book that men can and George Jean Nathan did in 1920 called the new member of the American creed out. They did a second volume called The New American Credo, which is a collection of Those things that existed in America in 1920 that were commonly held beliefs, but that weren't true or were only partially true. For example that all circus clowns are dying of a broken heart and there might have been obvious out of Opera and a few other things you got that notion, but everybody going to a circus would always say see those guys, huh? Why would you put on a red nose and big shoes like that? If you didn't have a broken heart and you're trying to hold hide it or that all ministers daughters were / miscues or that there were hundreds of things that we're sort of in the common not mind at that time. And and what Menken did Menken thought that this was going to be a great arrow in the heart of the American booze YZ that he would explode these myths and as a result that they did it make it make and loves criticism and he's the only probably the only American writer who just love bad reviews loved angry letters and he thought they were ever you going to everybody would rattle everybody's cage when this was came out and in fact the book became a minor bestseller and people loved it. And making got Furious that he got good reviews. He said that he felt that he had attacked the news because at the newspapers of the time he claimed were great sources of these things. So Joe and I were doing one night. We were at a dinner party and we were and I was saying, you know, somebody somebody's got to bring this thing up to date again and look at the myths of the eighties because we have a whole new with new sources. We have those tabloids that we find on the way out of the supermarket where it says that Memphis woman sees Elvis's face and oatmeal those kind of magazines or newspapers and then we've got Colin radio. Yeah radio call-in shows are great source of Passing along misinformation a good example would be the one that I've heard on a number of radio shows taught colleges, which is that the after the great New York City blackout a couple years back that nine months that they later After the Blackout that the number of babies born went up in a dramatically the new one the new version. By the way, is that that after the football strike the first Sunday nine months to the day after that first Sunday of the football strike the big vast and bulge in the population. Well, we did such a spoilsport things as called the New York City Department of Records and ask them what happened nine months, you know, give or take a few days After the Blackout and they actually was a very low birth rate period abnormally low actually so the Genesis for this was menken's book you decided that it was time to realize it and update it sort of get get you do collect the the common held beliefs of the 80s and check them out whether they be that lightning doesn't strike twice, which is going Very old I mean that was a very old one that still hangs on to some very new things new things about food new things about the media whatever and and check those out in other words and Mankins time. They were conspiracies having to do with Religion Today the conspiracy theories have to do with little green men hidden in Hangar 13 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base ours are little bit more technological more sophisticated. But but in his just as wrong, it's a six minutes past 12:00 o'clock. Paul Dixon is with us and we will open the phone lines for your questions about some of these things if there are some beliefs that you think are true or not true check them out. Paul will be able to make a make an educated guess at the accuracy of it two two seven six thousand is the telephone number in Minneapolis st. Paul in other parts of Minnesota, 1-800-695-1418. Those of you living outside the state of Minnesota can call us directly in the Twin Cities at area code 6. Twelve 2276 thousand. I don't know how many there are in here Paul. I would guess, you know many hundreds over thousand were over a thousand. How long did it take you to do the research on this and how can you be sure that that you're right on leaves? Well, there are certain things that are logical so it doesn't take a lot of time to research them. Like the exception proves the rule that's a bad translation. Really, I mean proves means it tests. It's the Latin probar a wood for proving but people say today like I'll say all already announcers that I've ever in America are are 7 feet tall and have green hair. And then the first one you meet is yourself who is not seven feet tall. And as I have a green here and I say aha that's the exception that proves the rule it's the exception that disproves the rule. So those were easy to research the really think about other things we had to check other things would a classic example would be the line that I've heard for years. There's that Well Mussolini made the trains run on time in Italy whatever other faults he had. Well that's easy to research. We called the military attaché at the Italian Embassy and he laughed heartily and said absolutely untrue or that's you know, you've ever heard of a cocktail party or something where somebody will be you'll be discussing socialism and somebody will say well they'll be talking about Swedish State socialism in they'll say well the swedes lead the world in suicide. Everybody knows that will you call the Swedish Embassy or you call it the United Nations which tabulates these things and you find out that their eighth or ninth and we're ahead of them. So a lot of things that you just pick up the phone and check. Well, I think there's a lot of people who picked up the phone with questions. So let's take our first listener with a question. Go ahead please you're on the air. Hi there. Can you hear us? Okay, let's try our next line. See if we were having any better luck. Go ahead, please you're on the air. Well my goodness are we having difficulties with the phone system? Okay. Now I can hear you. Okay, great. There's an American working man's myth that says that steel-toed shoes make your feet colder than regular shoes. Did you do any work on it didn't do any work on it, but it sounds it could be I suppose it might there might be some plausibility in the sense that steel-toed shoes conduct called better conduct temperature whether it be heat or cold Than Leather now that Mike well, there's one for yeah, that is a condition ice. We better check it. We better check it. I'm getting new ones every day. I got somebody said to me yesterday with mash on last night. Every time there's a great Blockbuster on TV. The allegation goes that whenever there's an ad that all the the water levels and all the major cities drops because everybody gets up and use the bathroom at that point or goes against a drink of water, but I'm going to check that because it's always it's always believed on faith, but I'm not sure. It's true. Well, how about the one that's the title of the book there are alligators in our sewers. Well, there there was a particle of Truth. The the particle of Truth was in the 1930s. There was a 19 inch alligator found in the New York Manhattan sewer system, which the department of sanitation dispatched with a gun and got rid of but the story got embellished and is H year progressed that the they got bigger until they were the size of Cadillac Eldorado 's and they would routinely eat sanitation workers and I've was on a show not unlike this in New York and people called up and they said no that that I'm absolutely wrong that they have a cousin who knew a man who used to work for the see the sanitation department and several workers were killed and my rebuttal kept being will wouldn't somebody like the New York Times or or local people be vaguely interested in the fact that these sanitation workers were being routinely eaten alive by these Cadillac sized alligators and the and the rebuttal on that was well, they're part of the conspiracy or their part of the the plan to keep. Quiet and the other funny thing about the alligators is that it appears everywhere. We had a we checked with a friend of ours in Sweden Stockholm Sweden. He said and Sweden the story is crocodiles and they come back from was always the same a vacationer brings back a souvenir animal. It's very small of alligator or crocodile. It starts to get bigger. They don't know what to do. They put it in the throw it in the John and flush it away and then it survives in the sewers the other variation on that which was picked up by the underground papers was in the 60s and 70s and major cities when police would come to the door drug enforcement people and the inhabitants would have marijuana and they would immediately throw it down the John and flush it away and that led to the stories which were circulated in the underground papers that there was a new breed breed of marijuana who knew kind of marijuana called Manhattan white, which was Now by no strain of marijuana. These were this was mostly written by people never took high school biology that that grew in the sewers without benefit of chlorophyll or or Sunlight earning another listener has a question. So let's take our next caller. Go ahead, please. Oh, I got two questions one's a real quick one. Is it true that the Opera is never over till the fat lady sings? Well, there you go. That was that was the Washington Bullets old slogan. That's probably true. The other one is about NASA and their space flights where there's always this claim that they cite all sorts of spaceships and flying saucers and math and the astronauts deny it and of course more they deny that the more people believe it the best thing I can tell you about. That is we talked to a top guy at Nasa and he looked this right or me right in the eye and he said, you know something if we that was true our Appropriations are way down there down to about a half what they were during the Apollo moon landing. He said we do anything to have something like that to pull out of the garage our Appropriations would quadruple the guy who made the discovery the woman who made the discovery would immediately get a two million dollar book contract. We would be back in the Limelight again the whole scientific Rd movement in America would get a poke in the arm. Everything would go right if they're in fact, he said we're spending millions of dollars sending these deep probes into space sending, you know with radio signals in such trying to prove this that there may be some of their life and he said for us to be sitting on it would be like for you to you know, you'd have a fortune in your house instead pretend you didn't have it. I mean, it's their meal ticket the other one that they have the biggest trouble with it's become a major major thing with him is that there is an underground notion that NASA discovered a lost day. And they get letters and calls every single day of the year alleging that they're covering this up this story. Now the interesting thing about it, it's gotten so bad that they now have a little brochure. If you're a high school student in right to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration saying what do you do the brochure on page 3 is the even points out that no matter what you've heard. There's no such thing as this lost day now nobody at the funny thing is nobody at Nasa really understood what understands what the significance of the lost they would be if it were in fact true and what what form did this day find, you know, we were people out there watching television and washing their cars and how did they find this lost a the NASA can't even figure out what what it would be but the story and it has that proper sound of mystical conspiracy the people in government are sitting on this. Let's see what another listener has go ahead, please. You're next. Yes. It seems there's a common held belief that I've heard for years that there is a secret underground United States government. I'd like to hear your comments. Well there I mean there is in the sense that there is there's a mountain in Virginia, which is got all of this Communications equipment and various other things if there was a national Calamity and there's sort of a there's a physical plant which with with heat and coffee machines and everything that that if the president the cabinet and the several other top people had to go, you know, whether it be a natural disaster in nuclear war something so that that's true but I don't think there's an underground thing as any more than that another listener with what's that people that call the shots behind the scenes of very financially power. Although they couldn't oh, I see what you mean like the although there are many usually right-wing Concepts about some group of people that meet once a year and it will be there be a Bretton Woods, New Hampshire or or the For the interest in The Institute for foreign affairs. Is that the that there's some hidden establishment usually with Rockefeller money that really does call the shots and tells the government what to do that's been around for Generations that story hmm not true. Well that mean of course it's not true. I mean the average reporter on a paper would get a Pulitzer if they could prove it was true some the fact that some VIP guy you meet in a bar says it's true doesn't make it true. Another listener has a fact or a fable want to check out. Hi. You're on the air. Hi, I want to explode what I my favorite myth. My name is Rafe do Matt spent many years in the Air Force. I have logged hundreds of thousands of miles in the air and I have never seen anything that remotely approached an unidentified flying object. My forefathers sat on the Chaldean planes and study the skies thousands of years ago and they never in any other writings ever reported one had been in China and I have read the teachings of ancient Chinese astronomers and I've never heard a single one reporting an incident of an unidentified flying object. I think this is strictly an anthropocentric delusion of our age Whereas we feel that we need some kind of father object to pin our hopes on to and I don't think that any such thing exists in reality about that Paul suppose that there that there are no Justified sightings of UFOs one here is that there's probably maybe half a dozen or so that they can't explain. Yeah. I'm sure there's some they can't explain but I tend to side with the gentleman who just called and one one thing that we put it on the book about UFOs. Is there usually the never the major ones are all usually in very small places and they usually cited around swamps. They never these if the UFOs whatever are in them was interested in how we lived you'd think they'd occasionally be cited in a major city. They're usually cited somewhere in a swamp. Hmm, perhaps somebody's had a few six-packs something. Alright, another listener is on the line with a common go ahead, please. Actually is more crime committed when there's a full moon. And the question is what about the Devils Triangle? Right? The full moon thing is a wonderful thing because that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. There have been studies in the United States and England that said no there is no instance rise in crime during a full moon nor is there any incidents higher incidence of mental disorder what happened and there's an old cliche that policeman use and everybody uses if it's a really bizarre night in the Station House and all sorts of things are happening. The line is always been well. It must be a full moon. There's never been any evidence. It's just sort of a feeling it's a metaphor for a lot of nutty things that metaphors gotten turned around to the point where we're now saying that they were there really is an increase on a full moon and it just not a bit and they've been several groups of is actually sat down and gone through the records and say no this doesn't work out and I think the Bermuda Triangle is a fascinating thing. But but again, it's it's there's so many people to go through it. I talked to a fellow the on a radio show. Go who had been over the Bermuda Triangle and a plane somewhere in the order of four or five hundred times? And he was one that he said look I know there were there was a squadron that was lost in World War Two. There's no question about that and there's a lot there's a slightly higher than average incidence of losses in that area, but it's not I mean you could also do it'll be there's nobody. There may be one of the Baltic as well. I mean, they just may be a combination of traffic and storms and of course storms come through there. So there is a Bermuda Triangle in the sense that it's a place you may have a little Caution but there's no major mean there every as we talk there are ships and planes passing through the Bermuda Triangle. All right, it's 19 minutes after the are Paul Dixon is with us author of there are alligators in our sewers and other American credos. We're taking your calls. Hi, you're on the air, okay. I have two questions. And since I'm calling long distance, I would like to ask those questions and then hang up and listen. Okay. All right, the first question concerns adoptive parents then having natural children and whether there is any correlation there or whether this is just something we hear about and and you know, it seems to be that this happens. So frequently, I wonder if they're you know has anything been proved statistically about this and the other question is that of self-fulfilling prophecy. If a person thinks that they may die in an accident. How often would that happen? If you think you're going to die of cancer if that's in the back of mind if you talk about that do those things happen or you know do it because it happened a large percentage of the time have those One at a time the first one about the adoptive parents and the children everybody knows those stories and I there's no question that they occur but it has probably a lot more to do with ovarian cycles and different biological things. The old story is just as this family adopted a child after years of trying to have a child of their own then a year later. They have their own child and no question that happens. I don't think there's anything statistically unusual about it. It just just that happens and the stories the reason that we think about it a lot is because the stories get told it's a great story that that happened and but we're not told about the stories in which the people adopt the parent of the child and they go on to adopt another child because they they still aren't able to have their own children. So I don't think there's anything really radically unusual about that on the self-fulfilling prophecy. I suppose again. I don't know if anyone's ever did a study that but Common Sense would say that if somebody is fretting and worrying and about having a traffic accident all the time, I would presume it's logical to think that they might in fact. That might influence their behavior in some way and they may get preoccupied and do something foolish in a car but the interesting thing about the self-fulfilling prophecy what the part that we honed in on the book were a lot of them are believes have about things like that all major accidents occur in threes or a current one. Is that all that that whenever major movie star of the of the of the magnitude of a Henry Fonda dies, they will immediately be to other stars will die within a short period of time. Well this goes back to the the the the Medieval Era they used to be there used to be a belief that that that sort of a folk belief that through that bad things come in threes and good things came in twos and this may have but the point about the self-fulfilling prophecy there is you start counting now. Nobody ever says they come in force because you start counting again and you start that they're just recalling. The other thing is sometimes you'll press somebody in the airline disaster the be a major disaster and then you'll say well, where are the other two in they'll say well there was a plane that went down in a cornfield in Iowa and the guy Both his legs and there's another one in Katmandu or tortilla del Fuego and then you say wait a second, you know, you were waiting for those three and therefore, you know, you pounced on the next to the came along and that's what I that that kind of thing is really suspect that there's just no way to to validate that stuff. Let's take another bit of wisdom or notion or whatever from another caller. Go ahead, please you're on the air. Yes. I take it your guest has willing to comment on historical facts that are often misconstrued. And my question is is there any truth to the fact that President Roosevelt was well aware of Pearl Harbor before it happened. Well, I think there's a new book out that I Believe by Andrew Tully that that indicates that he knew a lot more about what was going to happen than it did. So I it seems that that book which I have not yet read which is the new book within the last year or so would be worth reading. I would have stay away from it because I've the from the reviews I could tell that there's some feeling He may have known more than had been previously reported. All right, shall we take another listener? Go ahead, please you're on the air. Yeah Romeo and Juliet they talk about the Dog Days hot wind and people getting violent know I personally experienced a great deal of lassitude during this time. But there's a myth that during these days that greater amount of crime occurs violent crime yet. Now that would see that we when we were investigating the other the other business about the full moon we went into that and that is that there is some collaboration there that and and free with the most of the studies we looked at where the United States and they had to do with people being on the streets as opposed to being huddled in their apartments or their houses. So there is some credibility of the fact that there are hot humid days are more likely to have certain kinds of crimes appear, but the other things go down at that time burglary things that have a planning element to them and that's that is probably not a myth. That there's an influence there you have like you say probably more than a thousand of these things here, which expose fables things that are not true. They seem plausible but they're not true. Could you have written one that would have had as many common beliefs that are true or did you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah or else on. Yeah there are there are there are there are a lot that are true. It's just that you know, our purpose was to take a shot at the ones that you hear all the time and that and that aren't true and also go after the fables. I mean, we also collect a lot of the fables that you hear about. Oh, there's a thousand of them in the air right now, but the beauty of the woman who wants to dryer poodle for a dinner party and the poodle still wet from its bath and she said, well, it won't hurt if I put it in the microwave for a few minutes and the poodle explodes in the story and these stories are always told their about Maniacs on Lovers Lane and about ghosts hiss hikers and about there's a great one going around now about Reggie Jackson, which has been published in newspapers and these are stories that are always told By somebody who is about third hand, but they know it's so it's the other one that's very popular right now and it's been picked up by a couple of newspapers and then checked out to be and it was wrong the story that you're watching the Monday night movie on one of the networks and because of some bozos mistake that they he runs a real of an x-rated movie instead of the second reel of the movie of the thing you're watching. Well, you know Peter Pan or whatever you're watching. Well what the great thing about that story is it never appears within your viewing area? It's always told about somewhere else. It's an Albuquerque or Bakersfield or Portland and and they've been to newspapers recently picked up a story just to that effect and had to retract it a day later when they found it was just somebody telling a story. Well, it made a good tale. Oh, yeah. All right more listeners are on the line. Go ahead, please you're next. I am calling because I've heard a common political statement that President Reagan's defense. This is higher than most and I've heard some information contrary to that states that the Carter defense budget was actually higher. She you're getting into a Meet the Press issue here because I'm sure that that there are so many ways to play with those figures. Do you count veterans and that you do this? I really wouldn't be prepared to comment, you know, and that particular one because they're both pretty high. Okay, let's take another listener with a quill a question for Paul Dixon. Hi, you're on the air. All right. I'm a CPA here in town and I'm Fielding one that comes up this time of year. And that's the one that million Eric. They are millionaires are out there that don't pay their taxes or that don't pay taxes legally. She yeah, I'd like to hear how you feel bad when I was when somebody comes to you and says that very thing I think in fact, I could say I know because our office does the tax returns for a number of wealthy people. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you're wealthy you pay taxes and you pay a lot of taxes now, there might be a year or two when things line up kind of a little skewed and you have a high amount of losses and your taxes may be proportionately low, but then take a look at the year before and the year after and then you'll see that he pays more than his share on either side of the Year where he may pay little or nothing. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. The one that I will we play with in the book which isn't great one. Is that a rumor or a myth got started a couple years ago that those little stickers that the IRS puts on your tax form that in the coding of that is the pre is the is the code to tell whether or not you should be audited and this story got such and of course, it's absolutely untrue. But BB's how why would the IRAs decide in advance of you've been putting a pencil down whether or not you were going to be audited well enough people believe that That the IRS is now completely befuddled. They can't get people to use those stickers. I mean tens of thousands of people believe that there's some trigger in that little sticker for your audit. Have you heard that? Oh, I've heard that a lot of times to we don't have anything on this and where we can prove or disprove it and feel a lot more returns are getting done on computers this as the years go by and they already preprint all that information. So that's the main reason why the stickers don't get used is you've got a lot more computer prepared returns. Yeah, but still but the other thing is the IRS that when the least the IRS is saying that there's absolutely no truth to this this business about the the audit trigger being in there or whatever it is that well how would tens of thousands of people get that bit of misinformation? Maybe they may be like listening to this broadcast they were doing in here just the very tail end of what you were saying there above the computer tape that's on their shows with are going to be audited. That's all they hear. The other problem is I we talk to We contact with people one of the big problems that corporations have today are stories that are told about them that are absolutely untrue. And I remember as a kid being told that when Gillette put their ads in the world series that during the World Series week the blades were sharper and that the week when they got everybody convert the week later. They let him get dulling. I mean those kind of starts some of them are sort of mutant amusing but the one that's driving a modern American corporation nuts is the one about Proctor and Gamble the logo and Procter & Gamble has the half moon and the stars. There's a there's a man in the moon and then there's some Stars somewhere a couple years back it got into somebody's head somewhere in America. And this is totally untrue. I could keep saying that but but but that that was a symbol of some group that worship the devil. This was a code of devil-worship this this story has been repeated in newspapers in from the pulpit, especially enough of and certain fundamentalist groups. It's appeared in church bulletins. Actor and gamble is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to kill this. And one of the problems they have is every time they speak about it. Somebody catches the tail end and says somebody said well, this is this is a fable. This is a myth. This is a Fortune 500 company and what you know doesn't make any sense that it would be in the hands of devil worshippers and they're probably another Cincinnati Republicans who run the thing and but the thing that I did but the even even when they deny it it gets picked up again the only denial that really I think the best denial I've ever heard of was the rumor a couple years ago that that that McDonald's suffered through which was the rumor that's big in these things spread like wildfire that their hamburgers they were using worms their hamburgers and one of the pr kind of people public relations people associated with the company made the point that this kill the room are very quickly that that summer night crawlers were selling for a dollar seventy nine a pound and hamburgers a dolly 30. Not another listener is on the line with the question for Paul Dixon. Go ahead, please. Yeah, there seems to be a belief that you can take vegetables and freeze them or you can take orange juice and freeze it and concentrated and not do anything to the vitamin value you ever I've made a couple phone calls. Yeah, especially the orange juice bit. Uh-huh. The vitamin C is got to be killed because I had canker sores and when I'm drinking concentrate, they come back whereas they don't when I'm drinking regular orange juice. I've made a couple phone calls. I can't get out of confirmation or denial and I'm I can't think where else to call. Have. You ever had never heard that but it would seem to me that that there may obviously freezing may do something but I can't imagine knocking at the vitamins. I think that would be a major major news story and would our chabot's would change overnight if that were true because there's some things we freeze to preserve just for the vitamins or a major factor would be and certainly with certain kinds of vegetables and I mean a fish and I can think of all the things you freeze them. Yeah. Well, let's take another listener and see what what this caller has. Go ahead, please you're next. Yes back to theories on the full moon and its effect on our behaviour when we had our children at the University Hospitals The Midwives their swore that activity in their award that is children being born definitely increased during a full moon and Our Midwives were to us that they had actually studied the statistics and and could prove it. I want to give you an across anything like that whether there's something in the full moon that that triggers children are being born if they're close to it and secondly sort of a related point. I hear them the myth if it is such that women living together like sisters in a sorority or roommates in our department, whatever that after a few months their menstrual cycle start to coincide with one another. Is there any connection with these things whatsoever that you've been able to find out? The birth one I have never looked into but it seems very suspicious to me. I mean that the moon because again, they the Munna obviously has influence on some things on earth such as tides and there's no question that the sun and the moon but it doesn't seem to me that there would if a baby's full cycle a baby's full cycle and there may be a little variation in there a day or two which might be psychological is the one they actual baby is born but I just can't imagine that there's any statistics of behind that. I mean often when you hear people say their statistics, then you really push it and it's hard to find them and all of a sudden I forgot the other when you were asking me was about the menstrual cycles coinciding. Yeah, I've heard that I've never checked it up. But again, it seems to Pat it seems to suspicious because there's so many other factors. I mean just the fact that they're in that would that would assume that a whole sorority house at the University of Ohio was on the same menstrual cycle. I don't know it doesn't. Fit okay. It's 26 minutes before one o'clock. Paul Dixon is with us and we're taking your calls the telephone number of Minneapolis. St. Paul is 2276 thousand in other parts of Minnesota. 1-800-662-2386 one lines have been pretty busy. But if you get a busy signal don't give up just keep dialing and you may get in outside the state of Minnesota call us directly at area code 612 2276 thousand. All right, our next roaster is waiting. Go ahead please y'all there's this wonderful story that I heard many many years ago about a thing that Gene Shepard started up out in the East Coast with a he was with a radio station wor is now with national public radio interesting enough and he late at night. He got all of his listeners to sort of conspire and to go into ask in their local bookstores about a mythical Up to him created called I libertine right I libertine exactly and that this so the story goes that then after all this demand for this fictional book was created. It was about eighteen Century romantic Court love early life that had then got onto the bestseller list of the New York Times and that columnists said they had lunch with the author and that ultimately the Catholic Church even banned. The book is the first part I know to be true because I lived through that the second the way I've always heard the second part and in this I can't imagine getting in the New York Times bestseller list without the rule book what I understood the story. I had always heard was that that Ace books which you did that time was kicking out these potboilers science fiction mystery quasi race ebooks for of that era. I had a potboiler some time as some type in they just put the title. I libertine right on the cover. Was I just change the title rip whipped up a new cover and there was a sort of a fall out and it did fairly well as a potboiler because Shepherd had given it all that thing, but I can't imagine that that it that because those times reports come from, you know, actual bookstore interviews and and tabulations, but she used to do great stuff. Here's the other thing. He should have his listeners at one o'clock in the morning all throw up in their windows and yell it's time for the Dinah Shore show to everybody else to wake up and put on there. Yeah. Well, he ultimately wrote a book called I liberty interest and yeah, he knew he wanted to hickey I've read all his books. He's a genius. Okay, let's move on to our next listener with a question for politics and go ahead please I have to fables. I'd like you to comment on. Oh just relate them and hang up. First one is a story. I've heard several times in Wisconsin not being from a farm background. I'm not able to verify it that goes like this. It says a good-sized man should be able to lift a newborn calf and the story goes on to say that if the man Lift the new calf every day, preferably several times a day. You should be able to lift it as a full-grown cow or bull second one is that when I've heard on several occasions in Ireland and Great Britain and that is a Queen Elizabeth II is a secret Catholic who is waiting for the right moment to reveal this. Thank you. The first one is absurd in the on the face of it because a full-grown bull has can get up to over a thousand pounds and more aren't they? I mean, I remember but there are gargantuan. I mean I could see doing it for a couple of weeks is the calf crew, but I there's a point at which they're all these marvelous Farm Stories the other one about that always about the great athletes. They're always of another era but the bronko Nagurski is in the Jim Thorpe's is that the the Scout from the New York comes to see how the hell well this fella plays football and he's driving into the town and there's a man out in the field telling the thing with a hand plow but a steel plow and he said which way to the Nagurski house and it's Bronco himself and he Up the plow and points to the house with the plow. And those are the kind of stories that sort of sounds like the bull the the secret Catholic stuff is is always been there. It's been there for a hundred years. We did some study at looking into some of the myths that have existed the most exciting and I don't know the Queen Elizabeth thing is of course absurd but the one that that made the rounds for a while in the 1940s as started probably some right-wing anti-catholic whoa, or whoever was that the term Mac Mac, as you know into truck drivers say Imac how you doing was a code word for make America Catholic a a an acronym and I hope nobody just turned this on as decided that which this is absolutely untrue but there are marvelous stories that go between groups because groups from time to time suspect each other so though somebody just secretly this and going to reveal it on a certain moment is and then you also have the stories of the rock stars, who are Pushing in a people like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix Who are languishing in a hospital somewhere store James Dean and almost any generation has those stories so conspiracy is always a theme running throughout these things. Yeah, and it's always assumes that it never assumes the capitalist system at always assumes. There was a study that the Gallup did a study about the moon landing shortly after the landing. They found a 20 percent of all Americans felt that the moon landing had been staged in the Arizona desert and that it was phrased in such a way that Not only was it staged by the government NASA and the other people would be have to be involved but that the three networks were involved in the conspiracy. Well that assumes that maybe conservatively 500 people were involved in that that and that not one of them would run to the next holiday in and call a press conference and demanded an advance from a publisher to tell the story in other words. It always assumes that every that everybody will accede to the conspiracy the scary thing about that moon landing one. Was that the Didn't know we're almost as big as the ones who actually thought it was done in the desert. 20 minutes before one o'clock. Let's take another listen to go ahead you're on the air. Hello. You are talking about home. How many of these fables get started second and third-hand and you had mentioned the x-rated movie. Yeah on TV. Well, I got a first-hand one for you. I didn't see a whole real I saw maybe five seconds of uh, when they've changed the reels on a one of the Friday night movies or something. Uh-huh. There was a fully nude woman in the shower taking your shower, which they certainly would not have on network TV and like I said, they stopped the change the realize very quickly, but it did indeed happen to me. She didn't open the bathroom doors and I was okay. Okay, it really did happen. Okay. All right. Thank you. We'll take another listen to then. Go ahead. You're next. Yes about 20 years ago when I was in college, there was a story that went around and We were never able to confirm it about the lady whose husband was on a hunting trip and died in his brand-new Thunderbird convertible and wasn't found for several weeks and because of the decomposition the car was so badly. It smelled so badly that you could buy this car for an incredible price 50 books $1. Is that story in your book? Yeah. In fact there have been several folklorists who have studied this as almost a quintessential American Legend and and the story is very popular in high school and college. It usually starts out with a one person saying I know where you can get whatever the hottest car of the moment is Thunderbird Corvette, whatever z-car I know we can get one for $50 and it usually universe is in a hunting accident or a suicide and the cars in perfect shape and you say what's the catch and that's the man had died in there. There's a felon in Broome Vault who has studied this hole. An anthropologist or folklorist who studied this phenomenon and like many of these stories he found a little bit of a germ of Truth in it about a man in Michigan would died in a car and they didn't find him for a while. But but it was never a sale the car that you know, but but it always gets embellished the new version. There's another version now of the car sale and that goes like this and the and I people tell me this at the all the time is truth you pick up the paper in the morning and there's an ad in the paper and says a new Mercedes Benz or a BMW something very attractive for sale for $200 and you immediately call on the phone and the woman on the other end says well, I sold at the first person who saw the paper bought it and he's and you say well why on Earth could you have sold this valuable car for that little he said well my husband ran off with his secretary. They were in Las Vegas. They as he said he's leaving me forever and he said could I do him one last favor? And that is to sell the Mercedes and get as much money as I can for it and cable in the money and that's what could she does it to get back at him cells that? This 10th $15,000 car for $200 people swear that that's true and I and we kept the two of us when we're doing the researchers at all. We want to see is one wanted hmm. Well even accept a photocopy of wanted and it always happened to somebody just down the way or an uncle or whatever to great story but it's not true. How long did it take you to compile all this? Oh while we just we was easy to compile in the sense that we just had to keep her ears and our eyes open. We could look at a newspaper and come up with a couple classic one was when the recession was really bottomed out. There was a lot of stuff about the depression in the papers. For example, which got us thinking about the depression. For example, one illusion that we have is that on Black Friday when the market crashed that you couldn't see the sun over Wall Street because so many Brokers and millionaires were jumping out of Windows while we check that and there was a couple suicides but it was nothing like we always assume that there was a major rise in the suicide was the suicide rate for that year was low the When was that kids have this and it's a marvelous metaphor. But when the Depression started there were stuck for pictures. The newspapers are stuck you how do you take the picture of an economic event? So in New York, they'd sent people down to Union Square to take pictures of guys selling apples, which they'd always been at Union Square and the metaphor was will we become a nation of Apple sellers well over the years the metaphor is taken on a new reality and we checked a bunch of high school and college textbooks in American history just about every one of them had the same guy sitting there in Union Square selling apples. So kids today and this we got from our own kids and other people would go to very naively go to their grandparents and say grandpa. Did you sell apples during the Depression now the no question that word Apple sellers, but be the metaphor takes over from the reality and we start to think gee we were a nation of Apple Sellers and not nearly as many apples Sellers as the Fable editable. Yeah. Okay another listener with a comment. Go ahead, please you're on the air. Yes in a film you movies that I saw the sinking of the Titanic. At the point when the women and children were boarding the lifeboats the movie showed that some men had dressed up in women's clothing in order to build board the boats. Notably a Bruce Ismay who I think was one of the ship's owners and I was wondering do you know if there was any basis for that or if that was just a dramatic effect that the makers of the movie wanted to use I'd I've never checked that one and I will because that's a that's an interesting one. There was a famous one about Robert E Lee that he supposedly dressed in women's clothes to avoid being caught by the union and that that was not true but it's circulated. It's like George Washington the cherry tree, which is not true not true. Absolutely untrue, but it was added by a very very romantic writer who wanted Jesus to about 20 years after Washington's death who just wanted to make him look great and he just started making up stories. He does it with did bad research and it's that's that's been invalidated to another listener has a has a kind of go ahead please you're on the air. There's been a lot of talk about the strange coincidences between President Kennedy's death. Yep, and President Lincoln's death. No, I was worried. If you didn't done any research and our people just trying to make coincidences fit and are there as there any some truth to a lot of what's been said yet? There is a lot of Truth to that one, but but it doesn't get you anywhere. I mean it's fascinating but it might just be the law of averages. I mean both of them the litany I've heard people go through it. Both of them had a vice president named Johnson. Both of them had so many letters in there will part of their name that at that at that and you go through although the year. They were born was corresponding Century later. I've heard that but it goes on and on and there are a lot of coincidences and and that's no doubt true. But it but the fact is it doesn't really lead you to anything else. There's like the Johnsons a very common name in America. So the odds are maybe one in 400 that somebody's vice president might be named Johnson. How about the Kennedy assassination? Do you have any comments on that? Well, we didn't really get into that a lot because there's so many conflicting theories what I mean, we I guess we both tend to be skeptical about that. There were there is a body of thought that we attacked in the book that there's vastly more known about the Kennedys by the media. We there are a lot of people to believe that the news media the Press knows a lot more about the Kennedys the mafia certain other things in American society than they'll ever ever reveal and we talked about some news people and they just said that that they hear that all the time and it's not true that their jobs the spill it out and they don't hide it the conspiracy stuff though gets into politics a lot. The there's a lot to do with for example the dime there is a great body of thought that that it crops up enough. So that newspapers are always running in there clean columns little rebuttals to this or in their advice columns that there is a little on the About time at the bottom of Roosevelt's neck. There's a little tiny inscription and it's supposed to be either js4 Joseph Stalin or a hammer that Kennedy half-dollar I suppose to have a little Mark that looks like a hammer and sickle and this would this would the the clear implication here is that the United the Russians have gotten control of the u.s. Mint and it really all they are the little tiny Monograms of the of the the initials right there of the artists that designed the coin, but if you look at them and you're conspiratorially oriented, of course, it looks like a hammer and sickle when in fact, it's the guys initials which is you know, Jim Smith or something. Yeah, 12 minutes before one another listener with a question. Go ahead, please. Yeah. I've got a couple for you three. The first one is the notion even though it's almost impossible to play a record backwards that we're invested jizz in rock records by them backwards. The second is the notion that if you cross your eyes, they'll stick that And the third is the notion that in advertisers use subliminal messages with the one I've heard of is naked lady super imposed in an ice cube liquor add. Okay, those are wonderful ones though that they're wonderful is the pounce on to the hidden records. It's usually Led Zeppelin or somebody's record if you play it backwards at the right speed and I don't know who has this equipment that they play it backwards on they say I love the devil or this kind of thing. But the point is when you have things like the Rolling Stones having basically a albums out about the devil not albums but songs you have groups like Black Sabbath, there's no reason to hide that if you want to do a devil oriented song you can do it. I mean the point is also the never presupposes that you'd find anything out of the woods. There's if it's backwards on there what to what purpose if you want to do a song called. I love the devil we have enough freedom in this country that I could probably do that record if somebody would buy, you know produce it but you and also when Do play it backwards most kids who play it backwards are playing it backwards with their finger probably wrecking the record, but they can make it sound almost anything they want if they do it, right? And because you've got variables there then our won't blow that wall or you know, that kind of thing, but they're wonderful. They're always been with us. They were used to be about books that if you read certain people's books and you read the third line from the end. There was a hidden message that said Satan is my master. I mean these go back a hundred years. The cross ties is absolutely untrue. There's not one scintilla of scientific evidence that would support that and the nakedness and the ads is a book called subliminal seduction, which was a writer who claimed that if we looked at vodka ads we would see copulating polar bears and or the word sex written out in the ice cubes and I looked at the stuff. In fact, I reviewed the book for the Washington Post. I look that stuff into my eyes were falling out and I couldn't find it. But I just I can't imagine why anyone would go out who didn't want to but if you wanted to buy a bottle of vodka, I could see looking at the ad and but I can't imagine anyone being made. To buy a bottle of vodka because the were polar bears having a good time in them. And then the ice cubes. Let's take another listener with a question. Go ahead please. All right Nixon. Good afternoon, High you certainly have a very tough job that you've set out to do. For example, you mentioned earlier that it's a myth that's sweetened as a socialist country has the highest suicide rate in the world and you indicated that in fact, the United States suicide rate is higher. Well, according to the world health statistics from the World Health Organization that I'm looking at right here some side rates for selected countries per 100,000 population that Austria Denmark West Germany, Switzerland and Sweden all have the highest suicide rates all of which are higher than the United States. So to turn this into a question sure you indicate in your book the source of your data of your Tyrael and in a more General way would you care to comment on your research techniques and how you go about digging out the information other than calling up somebody who might have a vested interest in the answer. I'll hang up the sure sure comment on The Swedish Thing. We researched about two years ago you may have later date on it and I bet the the rate per hundred thousand is very small in other words the the fluctuation May. In fact put United States ahead of Sweden one year in behind Sweden another year. We looked at the same World Health Organization stuff un stuff and again our stuff maybe two years old by this point because we did a lot of the research early, but that clearly indicated at that point that the swedes had a lower rate than we did again. It was as a matter of you know small numbers, but I think what we were attacking so so if you are data might be a little out of date on that and I don't think in the book we actually say the United States is higher. We just said that Sweden is far further down the list then if you led to believe in terms of The anti-socialist argument which is always that they lead the world. There are usually in the top 10 but they're not they don't leave the world. Well, so did the general say Japan because Japan is very well. I didn't mention Japan the will all the world's Health stuff. I've seen his got Japan way up there. He asked if you cite in the book The references for the for the various on some we doing at some we just don't bother and some there that are that we just quote we're just quoting other people and it wasn't when people allege that the southern people in the South can be are always his hospitable and people in North aren't you don't have that you don't have to go to a study to prove that there's an absurdness or that Scotch people are are are stingy or whatever it may be because we're reacting The Stereotype and we're reacting to sort of you know conventional wisdom. And this isn't really like a PhD thesis where you go out and examine each one, but the factual ones the ones were an allegation of fact is made that muscle any made the trains run on time or whatever then then we got and dig this stuff up whether it's centipedes have a thousand like I mean hundred Which they don't how many do they have do 36 up to about 200? They you can there possibly there may be one species somewhere that has a hundred but it would be a quark 6 minutes before one we have time for a few more calls. Go ahead, please you're next. I have a couple of questions one kind of simple regarding the 1943 copper penny. I've been told that that's a myth that none of them exist, huh? Because there were those are the steel case ones, right? Yes, huh, that would be worth checking into hug my life. I believed until recently that they did exist and then I was told not so but the other question I hear from a couple of my friends whom I usually believe they told me a story that they believe about spontaneous human combustion. Oh, yeah both seen the same picture in some article somewhere a magazine or something of some repute. It wasn't National Enquirer. Uh-huh. We've seen the same picture of a man of where a man has spontaneously combusted in gone down through the couch and through the floor to the basement or wherever and there's a little bit left of him. I guess. I mean that to me sounds absurd. I mean not like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness or something. But yeah, I mean, I'd like to go go I go if I was betting on three of my bet on Loch Ness before it ever go for that one because I mean they had photographers and he decided to blow himself up in there were photographers there and and magazine editors and supposedly aftermath This man had been I mean just the whole through the couch and through the floor. Yeah, but that I mean I give in there it would seem to me that more than seemed to me. It would be clear to me that something like that ever happened and it was you could valette validate it ever it would be in Scientific American and would think it would be a lot of discussion about it. I mean, it just seems absurd over the body is 90% water. And if it was a can of Rags oily Rags, I'd go with it but not it's time for a couple more calls. I think we'll take you next go ahead. Please not to refute the records clean played backwards, but I believe it was eight and a half nine months ago, Minnesota Public Radio had a noontime program much like this and I was standing outside. I don't remember exact dates, but your announcer Bob something that I don't know if it's about Pottery jewelry. Well now that you mention that I do recall that okay. Yeah what it was was apparently some boy. I'll tell you my memory is still fading. I shouldn't really say much about it. But one of our producers found that when records are played backwards, sometimes there is something there and it's simple and it's usually kind of simple things like one was he that's right. Yeah. Tape you played backwards that had almost recognizable words. I admit that we're not exactly what I would want on a record but they are implanted we sing, you know, the difference between what could possibly appear randomly in other words to go through the whole business of recording something that made sense full of in a forward manner of playing it directly which would be enough to get everybody up go out and buy the record and then go and figure out a way to get it to all work backwards. I mean, I just don't understand what what the purpose of that would be or where it would influence people or to what end other words there is also a business of Randomness and sound that if you make enough sound, it's you're going to end up with some sounds that sound like something else. Well, I will say that this was not random sound what would be a song. I mean it was The Stairway to Heaven song. That's the one I don't know. It was one of the big groups that they're supposed to play Backwards. It says I love the devil and I've heard that and it It's very if you really have to make a lot of jumps if you re if you wanted to believe it said I love the devil you could make it sound like that. I mean you you and your mind but it but it but the if you asked a person walking in the room, what is this? What are these people saying? They say I don't know. Okay. Yeah, that would be like really hearing a parakeet talk in the so on agreed but one of them that I heard was very very queer blade at something like 1/16 normal speed. Yeah, and okay, but Eve. All right, let's let us assume that that what you're saying is right to what purpose would all of that been done presumably to Market records, right? You just sent back to send a package but most most people don't play records backwards do they in one case and I don't know what all those subliminal stuff is such as movie theaters that will flash one frame every 20 30 40 whatever about buy popcorn they've proven that it works. Not that they do it right. They can be down there isn't there is there's definitely a thing called sub little persuasion which you can do and it goes back to the first article I think on it appeared in 1950-51, but they have but they've been very clearly some stayed out of it. I mean, I don't think anyone's shown where a movie or a TV show is done it but worth looking into well, we just playing around a Time Paul Dixon. I want to thank you very much for coming in visiting with us Paul Dixon co-author of the book. There are alligators in our sewers and other American credos. It is a hardcover book and presumably available just about anywhere that does it for Midday for today. Thank you for listening. Thanks to Dorothy Hanford for answering the phones and for Tom wilmoth the engineer, this is Bob potterpaul Ting from the Twin Cities.