By David Emery, About.com Urban Legends Page Editor
(I receive his regular newsletter and am amazed how gullible we all are -Ed.)

ONE WAY TO take the emotional temperature of a culture is to eavesdrop on its rumour mill. Gossip, legends, and rumours tend to revolve around our passions — the things we fear, the things we hate, the things we yearn for, the people and things that enthral us. Last year was no exception.

2008 saw the election of America’s first African-American president. It also saw an unprecedented degree of rumour-mongering about the relatively obscure Illinois senator who earned that distinction, Barack Hussein Obama. The subtext of virtually all of these rumours was fear — fear of change, fear of the unknown. “Who is Barack Obama?” they seemed to demand. Why had most of us never heard of him before he ran for the presidency? What does he believe in? Does he have a secret agenda? Could he (literally) be the Antichrist?

Sentiments of quite a different kind were aroused by Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, a staunch conservative and gun rights advocate who also happened to be, as some observers crassly put it, “a babe.” A forged likeness of Palin sporting an American flag bikini and a rifle was one of the most popular viral images of the year.

Folks were also captivated by images of a dog as tall as a horse; scurrilous, longstanding rumours about actress Jamie Lee Curtis’s sexuality; and a decade-old chain email promising frequent forwarders a share of Bill Gates’ riches. And it appears that the only thing more terrifying to the average American than the alleged proliferation of a “zombifying” street drug called burundanga — Barack Obama aside, of course — is a nasty, hard-drive-destroying Internet worm masquerading as an e-card from Hallmark. By the way, did you claim your “free laptop” from Ericsson?

Here, in ascending order of popularity as measured by reader interest and overall Web traffic, are the Top 10 Urban Legends of 2008:

10. Burundanga Drug Warning 
“In Katy, Texas a man came over and offered his services as a painter to a female putting gas in her car and left his card. She said no, but accepted his card out of kindness and got in the car. The man then got into a car driven by another gentleman. As the lady left the service station she saw the men following her. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the window and realized that the odor was on her hand; the same hand which accepted the card from the gentleman at the gas station.” 

9. Free Laptop from Ericsson! 
“The Ericsson Company is distributing free computer laptops in an attempt to match Nokia that has already done so. Ericsson hopes to increase its popularity this way. For this reason, they are giving away the new WAP laptops. All you need to do to qualify is to send this mail to 8 people you know.”