headlights origins

From: phil@rahul.net (Phil Gustafson)
Subject: Murky News Illuminates Lights Legend
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1993 16:23:43 GMT

A front-page article by Kim Boatman in this morning's San Jose Mercury News
cites AFU luminaries Jan Harold Brunvand and Alan Dundes on a "particularly
chilling rumor with all the earmarks of an urban legend [that] is racing
through Silicon Valley, testimony to both the speed of electronic communica-
tion and our increasing fear of violence".

The paper won't reveal specifics for fear of copycats, but admits that an
alleged gang initiation rite targets motorists, and that:

   The warning has spread, via electronic mail, faxes, and word of mouth,
   to companies such as Sun Microsystems and Amdahl Corporation to Inde-
   pendence High School, to Alexian Brothers Hospital, to concerned
   citizen Joe Najar's cousin's friend's cousin. [heh]

Officials of the school and the hospital, as well as the constabulary,
deny the rumor.  Najar remains unconvinced.

JHB says the rumor "is very hot in Chicago right now.  It actually popped
up in Memphis first.  Somebody's just trying to cause a panic.  This
might be replacing the Satanic panic".

The article briefly describes the electronic media as UL vehicles. 
Dundes says that the "folklore that is being created has an almost
instant transition.  I call it folklore by fax".

Also mentioned are the venerable vanishing kidney story and a UL
"too graphic for public consumption [that] plays on fears of AIDS,
foreign travel, and foreigners".

[End of summary]

This story is certainly not the creation of a malevolent AFUer.  In
fact, when a version of the story was circulated at Sun and posted to
the local groups, more than one pish-tusher cited AFU as a thoughtful
source of more reliable information.

But there's no doubt that email and fax were responsible for the 
remarkably rapid cross-country spread of the tale.

Are there any Memphis lurkers who can help us out?  This is a unique
chance to trace a UL to its root, and we shouldn't let it slip away.

Phil

January 25, 1995