by Patti Beckert

Created on: January 22, 2010

Let’s face it, people love a good story and the more gory details the better. If written or told well, an urban legend can take on a life of its own and eventually become a part of history as a true story, no matter how unbelievable it might seem. That’s why we need to know what interesting websites are out there that take the time and the trouble to debunk urban legends and keep things real for us. This article will discuss three of those sites, each unique in their own right, i.e. Snopes.com., About.com, and Hoax.com. 

There are basically two types of websites that attempt to give us the truth when it comes to urban legends. One website, Snopes.com is set up primarily to list various urban legends and other questionable stories on its site and then set about the task of determining if the stories can be trusted or if they are indeed fake. Snopes is set up where only Snopes asks the questions and then goes about the task of answering the questions with a true or false answer, and reasons behind those answers. 

There are other sites; however, that take the Snopes concept one step further, i.e. they not only list the most popular urban legend stories and then tell you if they are true or false, but they then also provide a space on the website where the readers can write in and ask their own questions about something they may have seen on the internet and then get answers from the experts on the sites. About.com and Hoax.com follow this format. 

The latest of these two is Hoax.com, where readers can find information on the latest urban legends, as well as on a variety of other issues such as UFO and paranormal activity, sightings of bigfoot and ghosts. They can even get information on where to go for psychic information and how to spot fakes. In addition, there is an entire forum area you can log into where you can post a question and then get answers not only from the experts at Hoax.com but also hear from other readers who may be having the same experiences. 

At any rate, as long as there are people out there who think it is funny to pull a hoax on another human being and as long as there are age-old scary stories that re-circulate every new generation comes of age, there will be experts on websites such as Hoax.com, About.com and Snopes.com who will be ever vigilant in finding out the truth behind those hoaxes and urban legends. 

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