Even with a high-tech spin, some tales are still urban legends

THIS IS A GREAT ARTICLE. We will be puting links to these urban legend sites on our web page soon...RT

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Even with a high-tech spin, some tales are still urban legends
Thursday, November 10, 2005

You'd think as people become more techno-savvy, these crazy Internet warning e-mails would die off. Instead, they're more common than ever. They're changing, though. It's hard to believe, but lately a slightly higher percentage of the crazy-sounding cautionary tales are turning out to be . . . true. Or partly true. In some cases, slightly true.

Today's assortment comes with an appropriate theme: high technology.

Electrocution by cell phone: Several readers have passed along an e-mail warning folks not to answer their cell phones when the phones are being charged. 'Several days ago,' the message reads, a young man took a call on a phone 'still connected to an electrical outlet. Electricity flowed into the cell phone unrestrained, and the young man was thrown to the ground with a heavy thud,' dead.

Internet myth investigators have found only one apparent instance of this unfortunate kind of death, and it occurred years ago in India. No one can explain how it happened, because experts agree there is not enough current flowing into a charging cell phone to kill anyone."