ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about what are the sources of rumors and what kinds of events, facts, and people do they use as springboards. The myth of hidden sources is terribly persistent, being both pleasing and useful—pleasing as it catapults us into an imaginary universe of conspiracy, manipulation, misinformation, and economic and political warfare. Rumors are seen as crimes committed by third parties. Since 1978, some of the best-known American companies have had to face up, one after another, to terribly tenacious rumors to the effect that large portions of their capital being controlled by the very powerful Moon sect, or that they were out and out possessed by the Devil. The source of many a rumor is a troubling event or fact. A rumor consists in the mobilization of the group's attention: in the course of successive exchanges, the group tries to reconstruct the puzzle made up of scattered pieces gathered here and there.
