The following news story apparently first appeared in the Las Vegas Sun:
'A circus dwarf, nicknamed Od, died recently when he bounced sideways from a trampoline and was swallowed by a yawning hippopotamus waiting to appear in the next act. More than 1,000 spectators continued to applaud wildly until they realized the tragic mistake.'
And yet, of course, Od never existed; which doesn't stop the story appearing every few years as a news item, set in fictional circuses from Manchester to Thailand and Sydney. The hippo-eats-dwarf story is a) bizarre, b) almost certainly fake and c) masquerading as real, which describes a disturbing amount of what we hear and read about in magazines and on the web.
Scientific investigator Alex Boese, who has for ten years run the web's biggest myth-busting website www.museumofhoaxes.com, has collected together a wonderfully entertaining anthology of the best urban myths of recent years, from bonsai kittens reared in jars to keep them small to male lactation, and confirms or de-bunks them once and for all. So did Burger King really release a left-handed Whopper, with all of the condiments rotated through 180 degrees? Is dehydrated water available to buy online? Or are they just hippo-eats-dwarf urban myths?




![Manchan, Magan IRISH INTEREST Magan Manchan: Listen to the Land Speak [2022] hardback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/manchan-magan-magan-manchan-listen-to-the-land-speak-2022-hardback-57197364117843_{width}x.jpg?v=1743077146)

![Goggins, David POPULAR PSYCHOLOGY David Goggins: Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds [2018] paperback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/goggins-david-david-goggins-can-t-hurt-me-master-your-mind-and-defy-the-odds-2018-paperback-54040061378899_{width}x.jpg?v=1705507339)
![Keane, John B & Keane, John B. DRAMA John B. Keane: Sive [2009] paperback](http://chaptersbookstore.com/cdn/shop/files/keane-john-b-keane-john-b-john-b-keane-sive-2009-paperback-58292931101011_{width}x.jpg?v=1758904373)