A couple's late night make-out session is cut short when they hear a report on the car radio about an escaped killer — who has a hook for a hand — in the vicinity. The girl insists on being driven home immediately. Upon arrival at her house, the boy discovers a bloody hook hanging from the passenger-side car door handle.
       

        OXFORD — Known as “The Hook,” that story was the most common tale Miami University senior Justin Masterson encountered during his summer of field research in Southwest Ohio.

        It was, he said, the perfect example of an urban legend.

Justin Masterson at WMUB-FM at Miami University (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        People tell the stories as if they are true.

        They always happen to someone else.

        And, according to his mentor, assistant professor of English Judi Hetrick, “they tap into something deeper and more elemental in our lives.”

        In this case, “The Hook” legend lives on because it reminds each generation that adolescent sexual behaviors can be dangerous, even deadly.

        Mr. Masterson, 22, of Montgomery, won one of Miami's coveted 100 undergrad summer grants for his project, “But I Swear It Happened: The Nature and Purposes of Urban Legends.”

        The study links his passions for urban legends and broadcasting.

        Mr. Masterson discovered urban legends as a freshman when he chanced on a Web site devoted to them, www.snopes.com.

URBAN LEGENDS

• “One of my friends told me that if you pour salt water in a pop machine's coin slot, it would spew out loads of free pop.”    Explanation: This one is traced to a mid-1990s episode of the TV show MacGuyver. Teen-agers followed his example by using salt water to short-circuit coin changers. For some, it worked. Damage was about $600 to each machine. Vending machine owners modified coin changers to make “salting” difficult or impossible.    • This legend came in two versions on the Internet:    A girl got her long hair stuck at the top of the power tower at Ohio's Cedar Point and on the way down had her scalp ripped off.    I live in New Jersey, not too far from Great Adventure/Six Flags in Jackson. Every time I go someone never fails to mention that several years ago, a girl riding on the “Free Fall” attraction got her hair caught in the machinery and it near tore her scalp off.    Explanation: The basic story is true. On Sept. 14, 1996, Danielle Foti, 8, went to Bonkers 19 indoor amusement park at Haborlight Mall in Weymouth, Mass.    Danielle's hair slipped through the 1-inch gap between her seat back and motor cover on the Mini-Himalaya sled-like carousel ride.    Her hair wound around the spinning motor shaft, smashing her head against the seat and tearing away a piece of scalp.    She sued and won a $7.5 million settlement. The park went out of business.    Source: www.snopes.com

        Summer research also revealed that “not a lot of work has been done on urban legends” by scholars, so he read up on folklore and field research methods and began collecting legends.

        Accustomed to snatching sound bites for shows at WMUB-FM (88.5) at Miami, Mr. Masterson “tried the reporting thing first.”

        That elicited no urban legends, he said. “I've never put a mike in somebody's face and have it work.”

        Chastened, he learned to create comfortable, natural conversational contexts.

        “You need to talk to friends of friends,” he said.

        Buddies eventually brought together a total of 32 men and women in small groups. It was perfect. They ignored his recorder and gave him what he sought.

        Now, Mr. Masterson finds legends everywhere — in class, e-mails, private conversations and speeches on politics and race, gender and religion.

        Most people know urban legends “without knowing they know them,” Mr. Masterson said.

        “When they retell an urban legend, it's essential that the speaker at least believe the person from whom they heard the story believed it to be true.”

        Sometimes, it is.

        Snopes.com recently confirmed the story of a girl being scalped when her hair tangled in the machinery of an amusement park ride. The event occurred in Weymouth, Mass., in 1996.

        But it became an urban legend when people passed it along after hearing it from someone else. Along the way, retellings changed the source of the tale, the identity of the victim, the kind of ride and the name of park. But the central fact, the injury to the young girl, remained constant.

        On the other hand, even professional skeptics get suckered.

        Last year there was the legend of the man who sat at his desk — dead — for five days before a co-worker asked whether he was OK.

        The British Broadcasting Corp., the Guardian, the London Times and Sunday Mercury in England and the American Weekly World News reported it as fact, according to Barbara and David P. Mikkelson, who run snopes.com.

        Mr. Masterson will use the recorded interviews for public radio, and he hopes to convert his term paper into a scholarly article with Dr. Hetrick, a specialist in folklore.

        In addition to the $2,300 grant and $400 expense account, he'll earn enough credits to graduate a semester early, saving at least $6,500 in tuition, room and board.

        Mr. Masterson hopes to sell his WMUB programs to National Public Radio.

        Public radio is his passion, he conceded. Despite the modest salaries, that's where he hopes to work after graduation. “You find what you are interested in and get the country interested in it. It's a quest for something a little bit more worthwhile.”

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