You thought you were out of school and didn't have to take any more tests? Well, you were

wrong. Today I'm going to quiz you on that very thing you listened to Skeptoid for. Urban

Legends. So put on your thinking cap and get ready to have your knowledge of urban legends

put to the test. Literally. Our Urban Legend pop quiz is coming up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. Pop quiz. Urban Legends.

It's time once again to rip you out of the comfort of wherever you are and stick you on the hot

seat and force you to take our occasional quiz. This week's topic is Urban Legends. Consider

yourself the expert, do you? Ha ha! Familiar with all the Skeptoid episodes, are you? Well,

here are 10 questions to test your expertise not just on the Urban Legends themselves, but

on the general science literacy that underpins your ability to evaluate them critically. Are you ready?

Number one, the Philadelphia Experiment. It spawned books and movies. This most incredible

of all naval experiments, supposedly, tried to take a Navy worship in 1943, the USS Eldridge,

and make it physically invisible, and even instantly transport itself hundreds of miles.

Unfortunately, with disastrous results, with some sailors rematerialized inside the ship's decks

and bulkheads and others with lifelong disabilities. But that's the fictional Urban Legend version.

What did the actual Philadelphia Experiment try to accomplish? A, the experiment was about trying

to make the ship invisible to radar, B, the experiment was about demagnetizing the ship's hull

to evade torpedoes, or C, there was no experiment at all. The correct answer is C, there was no

experiment at all. The entire story is pure fiction. The USS Eldridge was a real ship,

but was engaged in its normal wartime duties nowhere near Philadelphia. The story was the brain

child of a mentally ill young man, Carl Allen, who wrote it in the margins of a UFO book and mailed

it to the US Navy's Office of Naval Research, from whence it entered the public consciousness

...