Billed as an "Unknown Life Form in North Carolina Sewer," this creepy
YouTube video of what looks like nothing so much as a pulsating blob of meat lodged in a Raleigh, NC sewer pipe is quite real, though in truth it is neither "unknown" nor an "alien" life form, as many who've seen the video have speculated.
According to various experts it's a either a colony of
tubifex worms (aka "sludge worms") or a colony of
Bryozoans (tentacled organisms commonly referred to as "moss animalcules"), both of which are relatively common but rarely seen by the average person because their native habitats are underwater. It's not unusual to find either species thriving in sewers.
Read more:
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Raleigh 'Sewer Creature' Surprises City Officials
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Raleigh Blog Goes Viral as 'Sewer Monster'
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Don't Be Alarmed, But It Is Alive!
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Creatures from the Sewer
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Public Utilities Group Confirms Sewer Monster Is RealAlex Boese has put together a
terrific analysis of last weekend's
spate of celebrity death rumors, including these pithy observations:
Status seeking is an important motive in why people spread these rumors. Being able to pass along new information makes people feel important in the eyes of their friends, even if the information later turns out to be bogus. Similarly, pranksters like to make up these hoaxes to gain approval from their social groups.
Rumors often serve as a form of entertainment and emotional release. It gives people a way to project their anxieties onto the world. In fact, rumors often spread without being believed, which seems to be the case with the recent death hoaxes.
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Is it true that the private parts of Prohibition-era gangster John Dillinger were preserved in a jar of formaldehyde and are still on display at the Smithsonian Institution?
Long story...It was a bumpy weekend for the rich and famous, with the entertainment industry mourning the loss of three pop culture icons even as the Internet churned out one hoax after another declaring more celebrities dead.
The hoaxfest was triggered by mid-week announcements confirming that Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson had died. By Thursday afternoon the Internet was rife with false reports claiming that actors Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford had died as well. Death announcements for Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres, Louie Anderson, P. Diddy, Natalie Portman, George Clooney, and Rick Astley — all bogus — followed in quick succession.
Pranksters used a variety of tactics to promulgate the rumors, including generating fake news stories on the Web, vandalizing Wikipedia pages, and hacking celebrities' Twitter accounts. Despite their rapid dissemination, all were debunked in fairly short order.
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