"Prominent black comedian Bill Cosby was killed this morning in a tragic car accident in South Central Los Angeles," reads the latest phony celebrity obituary to go viral online (see screenshot above). "The cause of the crash was blamed on the cell phone he was using to update his Twitter feed when driving in his car."

Nothing of the kind has been reported by any legitimate news source. The story is a two-month-old hoax originally posted on the same website responsible for false reports of actor Johnny Depp's death in January. (That website has since been removed for terms of service violations.)

Update: Bill Cosby 'rebuttals' death rumor - "As you well know, a dead person cannot rebuttal. Therefore, I am rebuttaling to tell you that when I heard the news I immediately began rebuttaling and went into denial. My wife has just informed me that there is no such word as rebuttaling, she says the word is rebutting. But I don't care, because I'm alive!" More on Bill Cosby.com

See also:
" Johnny Depp Is Dead
" Eminem Is Dead
" Britney Spears Is Dead
" Miley Cyrus Is Dead
" Jon Heder Is Dead
" Matt Damon Is Dead
" Jeff Goldblum Is Dead
" Emma Watson Is Dead
" Dolly Parton Is Dead
" Kanye West Is Dead
" Steven Tyler Is Dead

Bill Cosby Dead? Only on the Internet originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 11:21:10.

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We've gone around and around over the years on the question of whether the practice of "cow tipping"  described on Wikipedia as "the purported activity of sneaking up on a sleeping, upright cow and pushing it over for fun"  is fact or fiction.

Some scoffers point out the obvious: cows don't normally sleep standing up. Others object that toppling a half-ton mammal is easier said than done. Both arguments make sense to me, not to mention the fact that if it does exist, cow tipping is a pretty clear-cut case of animal cruelty and ought to be illegal, if it isn't already.

Notwithstanding those objections, someone near and dear to me swears with hand on heart that she actually witnessed an instance of cow tipping during her youth in rural upstate New York. Being a professed agnostic on the subject, it pains me to admit that it may well be true. I've long wished the victims of these alleged assaults could speak on their own behalf.

Now comes this headline in today's Knoxville News Sentinel: "Man Tipped by Cow at UT Farm."

Revenge is sweet.

Read more:
" The Physics of Cow Tipping
" Florida to Consider Ban on 'Cow Tipping'
" How to Cow Tip
" Experts Dispute Cow Tipping Theory
" Is There Really Such a Thing as Cow Tipping?

Cow Tips Man originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 12:34:20.

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Dear Parents,

Turn off the TV for once and pay attention.

Regarding math:

The math we do is really easy. If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress. We do part of it in class. How on earth they can NOT finish it is beyond me, but please help them with the part that we do NOT do in class. If your child is one of the mediocre few who excels on the homework, please contratulate them with a warm handshake or perhaps a halfhearted high-five, since finishing this homework is the equivalent of a twenty-year-old wanting to be congratulated for knowing how to tie his shoes....

The parents of children attending Litchfield Elementary School in Litchfield Park, Arizona actually did receive such a message, KPNX-TV News reported yesterday. Oddly enough, the fact that it was a joke intended for faculty members only doesn't seem to have mollified its unintended recipients. Litchfield's principal has been put on administrative leave and school superintendent Dr. Julianne Lein called every parent individually to apologize.

Read more:
" 'Joke' Letter from Principal Sent to Parents
" Full Text of the Letter

Email Joke Lands School Principal in Time-Out originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 13:46:02.

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GOBBLER'S KNOB, Punxsutawney, PA -- The bucktoothed rodent known in these parts as Punxsutawney Phil saw his own shadow this morning, which means, if you believe in this sort of thing, we can expect six more weeks of wintry weather.

Read more about the history, traditions and folklore of Groundhog Day.

Feb. 2, 2010: Groundhog Sees Shadow, Predicts More Winter originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 10:30:04.

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Though Groundhog Day proper is a North American tradition of fairly recent origin, its historical roots stretch back through the medieval Christian feast of Candlemas to ancient pagan midwinter celebrations. For the past 100 years, Groundhog Day has revolved around the ceremonial de-hibernation of a domesticated Pennsylvania woodchuck named Punxsutawney Phil.

Every February, Phil is hauled out of his artificial burrow on Gobbler's Knob (a hilltop near Punxsutawney, PA) to "predict" the next six weeks' weather. If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, legend has it, the cold winter weather will continue into March; if he doesn't, there'll be an early spring.

True? Of course not. It's folklore. Historically, the groundhog's "predictions" have more often been wrong than right.

Read More About Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 13:35:52.

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A gallery of odd and arresting viral images -- some real, some fake, some persistently enigmatic -- as circulated on the Internets! Start here...

The Urban Legends Slide Show originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 02:30:07.

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Yes, says Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb.com. "The hoodwinks, urban legends, fairy tales, humorous tall tales, and out-and-out scams that once arrived via our email inboxes have been slowly making their way to the world's largest social network," she writes. "And as before, people are being fooled into reposting because the message always comes from a trusted friend."

Case in point: the claim lately circulating that Facebook will donate $1 to Haiti earthquake relief every time a member repeats it in a status update. Not true, as I discussed in a blog posting two weeks ago.

Perez's advice rings familiar: "Just because the message comes via a trusted friend or family member, that doesn't make it worthy of reposting. Take a minute to think about it, use common sense, run a quick Google search if unsure, and then decide if that story is one to pass on."

It only takes a minute. Your Facebook friends will appreciate it.

Read more:
" Facebook Status Messages Are the New Chain Emails

Are Facebook Status Updates the New Chain Emails? originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 14:19:46.

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Contrary to rumors propapated mainly by Facebook users themselves, the popular social networking site has not announced plans to begin charging $4.99 a month for basic membership.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that a website to which Facebook members have been directed to register their disapproval of the nonexistent plan reportedly delivers malicious software to unprotected computers. Beware!

Paying for Facebook (in More Ways Than One) originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 17:07:57.

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Hair of the Dog originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 07:47:48.

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On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: a free laptop from Sony Ericsson.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: a virus in a Hallmark postcard, and a free laptop from Sony Ericsson.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: a hermaphrodite named Lady Gaga, a virus in a Hallmark postcard, and a free laptop from Sony Ericsson.

Top 10 Urban Legends of 2009 originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 10:46:33.

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Quiz: Christmas Myths  Facts originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 02:03:45.

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Thanks to an overblown chain email and a flurry of online notices, 4-year-old Jacob Hadcock of Mexico, New York has received upwards of 25,000 Christmas cards from total strangers this past week. Far from being "terminally ill," however, Jacob is responding well to treatment for his leukemia, his parents say, and is otherwise quite healthy. Read more...

See also: Christmas Cards for Nathan Elfrink

Not-So-Terminally Ill NY Boy Inundated with Christmas Cards originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 12:16:03.

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What is the origin of the Jack-o'-Lantern? Why do children go trick-or-treating on Halloween? Who came up with "bobbing for apples"? While the modern celebration of Halloween still bears traces of its Celtic origins, it has come down to us as a cross-cultural stew of folk traditions, all pertaining in some way to death and the supernatural. Here you'll find answers to your questions about the history and lore of this one-of-a-kind holiday.

The History of Halloween originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 00:30:22.

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A gallery of odd and arresting viral images -- some real, some fake, some persistently enigmatic -- as circulated on the Internets! Start here...

The Urban Legends Slide Show originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 12:30:07.

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"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

-- Attributed to Rush Limbaugh

An investment group trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams nixed Rush Limbaugh's participation in the deal yesterday because the talk show host's reputation for inciting controversy was proving "a complication and a distraction to our intentions," according to one member of the group.

That the famously conservative and outspoken Limbaugh thrives on controversy is beyond dispute, but on the flip side his high-profile NFL bid seems to have served as an excuse for a smear campaign based on various provocative statements attributed to Limbaugh, at least a few of which are demonstrably bogus.

Read more...

Limbaugh Slavery Quote Is Bogus originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 17:51:02.

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It figures that the same President who would pull the plug on Granny to save a dime on health care would ban Christmas from the White House, right? Well, according to one of the more popular email rumors circulating just now, the Grinch otherwise known as Barack Obama is preparing to do just that.

The forwarded message  anonymous, of course  claims that artists who have contributed ornaments for White House Christmas trees past were sent a letter this year stating that henceforth they will be known only as "holiday trees," not "Christmas trees," and no religious-themed ornaments will be allowed.

Now, somebody wouldn't just make a thing like that up, would they? Naaaaah...

Christmas Banned in the White House? originally appeared on About.com Urban Legends on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 19:31:53.

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