ABSTRACT
Rumors are called negative when they state facts associated with fear or hostility, while positive rumors evoke happy, desired events. Giving colors to rumors, French scholars speak of "noir" and "rose" rumors. Negatory rumors are rumors claiming that real events are rumors. Therefore, negatory theses, the elaborated forms of these rumors, explicitly refer to historical criticism as a scientific model. If there is a lie or imposture, it is necessary that there be liars and impostors. To knowingly hide a reality from the entire world and to lead us to believe in another reality is an undertaking that involves a concerted plan, suggesting the existence of an organized group having power over the media. In spite of progress in the diffusion of news and in the identification of persons, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did not see the extinction of survival legends.
