ABSTRACT
PART ONE: INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS What do you suppose are the chances of sighting a colony of giant albino alligators in the New York City sewers or a vampire lurking in the Victorian gardens of London’s Highgate cemetery? These are examples of urban legends: stories that have been widely circulated for many years, but are almost certainly untrue. So, how come a lot of people believe any of them? There are probably many reasons. For starters, people have heard the stories frequently repeated in informal conversations where an experience or sighting is specifically attributed to “a friend of a friend.” An actual person is alleged to have seen the albino alligators in the sewers or the vampires in the cemetery. Those concrete-sounding details make the stories being passed along seem plausible, and as more people hear them, they in turn help to further spread the tales.
