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cattyfan
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Myths, Hoaxes, and Scams
My sister recently sent an e-mail to me and I have to admit when I opened it, I was a little annoyed. Not at my sister, but at the urban myths and sometimes outright lies which have gotten so much easier to perpetuate with the advent of the Internet. Two in particular have now been drifting about for decades.
The first, although irritating, is not generally harmful. In 1989 a ten year old boy by the name of Craig Shergold was being treated for a rare cancer. His prognosis wasn’t good, so in an attempt to cheer him up, people started sending get well cards. Because his mom had quite a few business contacts, Craig had soon accumulated over two hundred cards. Nurses in the hospital in England where Craig was being treated took note, and soon there was a public plea in the local paper and thousands of cards began pouring in.
March of 1991 brought a miracle to Craig’s life. Millionaire John Kluge had spotted the story about the boy, and Kluge made it his mission to make this child well. He flew Craig to specialists and after lengthy treatment and surgery Craig Shergold was pronounced cured.
One would think at this point the story would close with, “And they lived happily ever after.” But, alas, such is not the case.
The tale of young Mister Shergold was sent out in letters, in faxes, repeated in news reports, and now lives on in e-mails sent out all over the world. The really interesting thing is how the details have been altered over time. Craig Shergold has become Shefford, Shelford, Stafford, Sheppard, Sheffield, or sometimes Greg Sherwood. He’s no longer ten; he has de-aged to seven (a trick many middle-aged women wish would be shared with as much enthusiasm as Craig’s plight has been.) On the downside Craig’s cancer was now being referred to in these missives as “terminal.” And it listed his mailing address as Atlanta, making it a long swim for the mailman, since Craig actually lived in a small town in Europe. Some later versions moved the boy to Kentucky. One more thing…for some reason the call for get well cards was changed to business cards. Why someone thought inundating some poor, ill, unsuspecting child with business cards was a better plan then cheerful wishes of good health is a mystery.
The envelopes still arrive, addressed to some youth whose initials are C.S. who has been suffering from terminal cancer for fifteen years and still is only seven years old. I’m at a loss as to how the public can have such a memory problem that when the requests for business cards appear in their cyber-mail, on their fax machine, or in the mailbox it doesn’t ring a bell.
The report on snopes.com regarding this oft-repeated legend says
“One of the addresses used in the "request for cards" letter is that of the "81 Perimeter Center East" in Atlanta, which before the emergence of the hoax was the office of the Children's Wish Foundation International. The foundation had to relocate because of all the unwanted Shergold mail. The U.S. Postal Service in Atlanta holds the hoax mailings (now more than 100 million) for a required length of time and, after they remain unclaimed, releases them to an Atlanta paper recycler.
Though the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America has never been involved with this appeal, it became a permanent fixture in the standard chain letter. Kind-hearted souls are invariably directed to mail business card offerings to it. Make-A-Wish has made repeated requests that "people please stop sending business cards or greeting cards to Craig Shergold" but these continue to go unheeded.”
There are also variations on this same theme which contain the names of other children. Although the names belong to real kids with real ailments, all of the appeals are fake.
Craig is an adult now and doing very well, but a percentage of the world populace still believes he’s a child with cancer. He appeared on Good Morning America in 1997, but the interview had no effect. It’s sad for those who are taken in, but at least there is no real damage…just squandered postage, wasted business cards, and some grumpy postal workers (which could potentially be a problem, so we really need to put a stop to this.)
The second hoax is far worse as it’s a poor reflection on the Christian community. This scam makes believers in Jesus seem horribly gullible. Unfortunately for my sister, it was a form of this deceptive letter which she forwarded.
The roots of the lie stretch back to the early seventies. It goes something like this:
Madalyn Murray O'Hair, an atheist, whose effort successfully eliminated the use of the Bible Reading and Prayer from public schools fifteen years ago, has now been granted a Federal hearing in Washington, D.C. on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Her petition, P.M. 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the Gospel on the air waves of America.
If her attempt is successful, all Sunday Worship services being broadcast on the radio or by television will be stopped. This group is also campaigning to remove all Christmas programs and Christmas carols from public schools.
You as a Christian can help! We are praying for at least 1 million signatures. This would defeat her effort and show that there are many Christians alive, well and concerned about our country. As Christians we must unite on this. Please don't take this lightly. We ignored this once and lost prayer in our school and in offices across the nation. Please stand up for your religious freedom and let your voice be heard, while creating an opportunity for the lost to know the Lord.
This excerpt was taken from one of the many versions of the letter I have received in the last year. It was “credited” to James Dobson and went on to tell me about how the networks would no longer allow the name of God to be mentioned. Some renderings cite the show Touched By An Angel as being in danger from this fictional threat. The lie was so prevalent, the show’s official website posted an entire page dedicated to a disclaimer. Now Joan of Arcadia is being invoked as the imperiled program. Other forms of the chain-mail claim any remotely religious uttering will soon be outlawed.
I’m no fan of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, but she was never involved in any movement to ban religious broadcasts. While it’s true she was responsible, in part, for prayer being restricted in public schools, and she was concerned about maintaining equal access to publicly held airwaves, she never advocated banning God from T.V. and radio. The distortion of her intent is still being quoted in the correspondence trying to drum up support for this nonexistent cause. Madalyn would have to be awfully determined to keep up this fight, as she’s been dead since 1995, (although it was only recently her body was found.) But every year the FCC is swamped with notes from panicking believers and it appears nothing is able to dissuade these folks they are in complete error.
Now the myth has sprung to life again via e-mail, and it arrives in the guise of a petition which the recipient is supposed to send out to “everyone they know.” Think about this carefully… petitions are floating around out there and multiplying as each addressee signs their name and sends it on. How would they ever get an accurate count of the signatures since every one you sent out has your name listed…and each person who had the misfortune to be in your address book has sent a petition with your name to everyone they know…etc., etc., etc. Your name could be on thousands of these petitions. And who in this endless cycle has the responsibility of forwarding the repetitious pieces to the appropriate government office…or are we to just presume that at some point they’ll land at the FCC because eventually the government offices are bound to pop up on someone “to send” list?
Participants waste their time with chain letters of this type, which is bad enough, but they also release their e-mail address, their IP, and their name to hackers, spammers, and identity thieves throughout the globe. Believe me when I tell you, that poses a far more insidious and imminent threat than any letter detailing the fictional endeavors of a deceased atheist.
---Berta Collins Eddy
copyright Almost Normal Publications 2005
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