Simply put, urban legends are modern folktales. Passed on initially by word of mouth and nearly always second or third hand - "A friend of a friend told me"! Very often they are anecdotes that have a surprise climax, sometimes amusing and sometimes pointing towards a moral or a truth.
Most of these tales turn out to be just invention. They sound quite plausible enough in the telling and are therefore spread more quickly. Frequently, they appear as add-ons to spectacular events in the news.
Several sprang up in the aftermath of the September 11th. Twin Towers tragedy in New York - "The face of the Devil was seen in the smoke!", "One man escaped by abseiling down the building as it collapsed!" and so on. Stories are then built around the supposed incident to add substance and authenticity and there you have an urban legend in the making.
A good tale well told with recognisable locations added in can very easily be accepted as being true. Ghost stories often fall into this category. People tend to be naturally superstitious and all too ready to believe a storyteller who insists that his tale is true because, "My uncle or grandmother said it happened to them!". After all, he wouldn't lie about that - would he?!
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