The internet has brought us many things. But one of those glorious items had been the “Rumor Mill.”
It is true. Rumors spread faster on the internet than maple syrup runs down a stack of pancakes.
But “rumors” have flown around long before the internet was born.
Here are a few of the biggest jaw-droppers that hit society before the World Wide Web.
• A Mummy’s Curse Sank the Titanic // 1914
That was the story. The disaster of the Titanic in 1912 gave rise to countless rumors. And honestly, many rumors are still around today.
But a weird one surfaced a couple of years after the ship sank. It claimed the doomed liner was carrying a cursed Egyptian mummy case. And that mummy caused the ship to sink.
According to the story, the curse of that mummy had already caused a great deal of havoc at the British Museum. So the officials there were shipping it to the U.S. to get rid of it.
The story was related in a 1914 issue of The Sun, which quoted a publication called The International Psychic Gazette that said, “A story is now being told in well-informed circles, which is said to have emanated from one of the museum authorities.”
The rumor persisted for years, but as it turns out, there is no truth in any of this. The object had never left the Museum until it went to a temporary exhibition in 1990. The Museum confirmed this information.
• Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors Are Married // 1971
This rumor gained wide currency. The rumor predated the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. by some four decades. So it was a big one.
Its success as a rumor might not have had to that much with homophobia. Rather, people were more interested because of the seeming absurdity that the handsome movie idol Rock Hudson could actually be with the goofy Gomer Pyle sitcom actor Jim Nabors.
The rumor apparently evolved from a joke that went like this:
“If Rock Hudson married Gomer Pyle, he’d be Rock Pyle”
Well. You know how rumors start. This joke turned into gossip. It gained such traction that both men felt compelled to deny it publicly. Poor guys. I’m not sure if Rock Hudson had a life partner, but Jim Nabors married his partner of 38 years, Stan Cadwallader, on January 15, 2013.
• Elvis Is Alive // 1977
Of course, Elvis Presley’s death in 1977 at age 42 was a shock to many. And those people who loved him, his adoring fans, did not want to believe it. Pretty quickly, quite a few rumors got started that he was alive. ALIVE!
Yes. That was the story. Elvis was alive and had gone into hiding. In some versions, he faked his death to escape the Mafia; in others, simply to escape the burdens of fame.
So then came the “reported sightings.” People were seeing Elvis everywhere. And, they have continued ever since, sometimes as jokes, other times with dead seriousness.
When I used to bartend, my boss George and I were always pulling theatrics behind the bar. One of my standard lines, when I was washing glasses, was that I could see Elvis in an image on a dirty glass. It was a hoot.
So there they are. A few pre-internet rumors from American history. Back in the good old days.
When word traveled by mouth, not keyboards.
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“A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.” — John Tudor
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“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” — Winston Churchill
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“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” — William Shakespeare
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The early rumor mil. Before the wired connected it all.
