Really quickly here for all those listening, this isn't an ad. I just want to really thank you sincerely. I really mean it if you count bonus episodes and reaction episodes were coming up on our 50th episode of this podcast and on this podcast it's been quite a journey restarted about two years ago I think and for some of us now it's been over decade and all of you represent an important piece to such a loyal following of this pod.

I really could never imagined it so what I am really just trying to say is thank you. And now here is today's episode.

Welcome to season three of what really happened executive produced by seven bucks productions, Dwayne Johnson, Danny Garcia and Brian Gowertz in association with cadence 13.

It's written and hosted by me Andrew Jenks and you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram at Andrew Jenks. You can also become a contributor to the show by going to Jenks pod dot com slash contributors.

This story contains strong language and potentially disturbing content discretion is advised.

A story is the most convincing way to understand a universal truth.

A few months ago a friend told me an unbelievable story the next day he sent a link to a newspaper article with more details it blew me away.

It's about two people although I can't confirm their respective names let's say one is named Sarah the other is named Mike Mike has been on Tinder but isn't having much luck same with Sarah but they match and they start talking to each other.

It goes back and forth for a while six months actually finally they go on a date Mike picks up Sarah for dinner they're enjoying their meal but she begins to feel sick she tries to push through but can't Mike says no problem they can reschedule and Mike says he'll take her home.

But on the way home Sarah starts to feel better. Hey do you want to come inside for some tea she asks Mike would love to but another twist at home Sarah falls ill again Mike says they'll make it work another time and he takes off Sarah goes to bed.

Sarah wakes up in the middle of the night she hears noises downstairs she calls the police who arrive on the scene they do a quick scan everything seems fine finally they check the basement they don't want to tell her what they find but Sarah insists it's her house after all the police then tell her her basement was covered in plastic there was a hammer and a saw on the ground.

Sarah informs them she had been feeling ill law enforcement proceeds to do a drug test and finds that she has a slew of drugs running through her system they can't believe she's conscious what really happened.

A few weeks later I heard an eerily similar story let's say this woman's name is Michelle Michelle is in her early 20s and just moved to Boston for university the house she moves into is a bit old so she isn't that concerned when she hears strange noises after telling some family members they suggest she calls police just to make sure everything is fine who knows maybe someone is roaming around near the house slated night.

So Michelle calls the police she emphasizes to law enforcement it's almost certainly nothing and the person on dispatch says since it's not a rush that the cops will be there in about 40 minutes they tell Michelle it's a busy night as his customary they stay on the line with Michelle in the event something happens while she waits and then suddenly only three minutes later police cars storm the front of the home and search the house

and they find a man in the basement the man has a tool set packed with different tools tools that as vice reported would be used as quote torture devices or to dismember a body and then comes perhaps the most shocking part at least for Michelle the man is someone she met on tender and went on a date with

during the date she mentioned she lived alone clearly this predator wanted to take advantage as it turns out the 911 dispatcher thought she had heard someone on the other line of the call so while she pretended to agree with Michelle that it was nothing and said it would take 40 minutes she told police to get their ASAP they caught the man red handed

I thought these would make for interesting episodes so I looked them up on the Google machine the first story I told came from a video on Twitter it was posted on April 24 and had been viewed nearly two million times but as I searched around to get more details about the story small facts seem to change

in some tellings of the story Michelle with that house in Boston was living somewhere in the middle of nowhere apparently in the woods somewhere which certainly sounds more scary when reporters tried reaching out to the woman who posted the story

they didn't get a response in fact nobody has been able to prove anything the names of the people involved the person who first told or reported the story law enforcement don't have records of any of this nothing it has become clear both of these first two stories are urban legends there are of course plenty of examples you can find in which there were tender dates gone wrong

tender dates and fact in which someone was murdered but not here and all this got me thinking how are urban legends formed how have they changed what makes an urban legend spread across the world well for starters what even is an urban legend

that's a good question so an urban legend is typically a story that gets passed around through word of mouth person to person that's Matthew Hudson author of the seven laws of magical thinking and a writer for a lot of reputable publications science magazine the New York Times magazine the New Yorker Atlantic monthly you get the gist

and usually has some sort of salacious content that makes it very memorable it's kind of sticky in your memory and it often has some sort of warning embedded in it and so they can be things like tales of some weird murder or it can be sort of advice about some product if you use a product the wrong way then something terrible happens

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