Abraham Lincoln's famously said if

you've read it on the internet it must

be truea quote that most youtube list

channels seem to have taken to heart

it is often difficult to know if the

things that you read and view online are

true or notwhich makes it especially

difficult for me as it's part of my job

the last thing I want is to be the

source of misinformation

so in today's videoI'd like to

demonstrate how truly difficult it can

be and how a single inaccuratecetacean

can lead to an ocean of misinformation

ok so a few weeks ago I stumbled upon a

supposed that fact it goeslike this

the average person annually swallowsate

spiders intheir sleep

I've seen variations of this claimin

timesbefore and it's quite easily

dismissible for example most household

spiders are not exactly fond of wet and

windy regions which is a perfect

description of the human mouth for the

more spiders are very sensitive to

vibrations and while asleep we tend to

move around

breathe snorts cetera which causes

despite our equivalentof an earthquake

a human quake nevertheless experts in

both human and spider biology can attest

my spider munching in our sleep is

highly improbable but it did make me

wonder if the claim is so easily

dismissiblehow did it begin andholy

community guidelines thatI discover a

rabbit hole deeper than your favorite

inspirational quote a quick search led

me to an article on aweb site known as

snopes.comsnopes is aweb site

specializingin debunking urban legends

and most people seem to agree that it is

a quite reputable source and article

theyclaim that the myth gained

popularity 1993 when a columnist by the

name of Lisa better getholster wrote an

article titled reading is believing in a

magazine known aspc professional she

supposedly wrotethe article which

included the eight spiders myth to

demonstrate how people will believe

anything they read onlinea further

claimed she took this myth

a book released in 1954 titled insect

fact and folklore so ifsnopes is to be

believed the myth began with a book

released in 1954 and to solidify this

claim even furtheryou can find hundreds

of articles and books telling the exact

same story

simple enough quite an interesting piece

of trivia case closed

if it wasn't for the fact that i bought

the book and it does not include any

mention of swallowing spiders in your

sleep

in fact it would be a bit strange if it

did as spiders are not insects they are

arthropodswhich is a bit ironically the

only thing you will learn about spiders

while reading this book soI went back

to slopes article and went through the

rest of their citationstwo are

unrelated to the origins of the myth

then they cite an article in the 1997

issue of the newspaperchicago sun-times

i was able to read article thanks to

some incredibly kind people over to

Chicago subreddit who provided me with a

copy

unfortunately it does not shed any light

on the origins of the myth as the

article only consists of a reader asking

if this urban legend is true or not

followed by an entomologist claiming

that it is unlikely that leaves us with

citation number three and this my

friends is where we go off the deep end

a quickservice but I'm not the first to

investigate this sources most of the top

resultsof that of other people looking

for the exact same thing as it turns out

no one has been able to find a columnist

by the name of Lisa better get host nor

has anyone been able to locate the

computer magazine by the title ofpc

professional at least not in theUnited

States so perhaps the magazine was

published in another countrythe name

Lisa Bogut hauls does sound quite

European and sure enough the given

middle and surname is of European

origins using various online archives

catalogs and excess i was able to locate

five different magazines with either a

similar title or with exact same title

published in a language other than

English there's a magazine from the you

k but a title pc pro but the first issue

was first published inNovember of 1994

i also found a magazine with exact title

ofpc professional but it was

unfortunately written in an

unsophisticated and intelligible

language known asdanish the first issue

was also published in1997 a Swedish

magazine also the exact title ofpc

professional published a grand total of

what appears to be two issues one in

1992 and one in 1993 the thing is if

we're searching for an article

responsible for a widespread global

misconception

I fail to see how an obscure and

short-lived magazine fromSweden with a

readership of a few thousand at most

could possibly have served as the

catalyst not to speak of the tremendous

improbability of this local magazine

then ending up in the hands of an

American couple who happens to run aweb

site specializing in debunking urban

legends who then alsotranslated the

magazine from swedish to english yet

failed to mention any of this in the

very article they wrote about the topic

so it lets put it in the maybe pilefor

now the last two publications one from

Italy and one from Germany seem to be

the most likely candidates both

magazines are titledpc professional in

their respective language had a

readership in the hundreds of thousands

and has released monthly issues since

1991at this point there was no doubt in

my mind that the German magazine must

contained article for two main reasons

first discerning host isDanish and

German in origin andthat's a really

common surname inGermany to this very

day as comparisoni was only able to

track down a single person in all of

Italy with a surnamehost secondthe

magazine is the official german version

of pc magazine which is one of the most

popular pc oriented magazines in the

united states in factpcmag has

mentionedits German sister publication

on numerous occasionsthis had to be it

and if i wanted to know the truth

there was only one thing left for me to

do

I packed my bags jumped on a plane and

traveled toGermany on second thought

maybe I should see ifi can find it

online firstI eventually found a German

library that for a small fee could send

me a scanned copy of page 71 from the

1993January issue ofpc professional

and here it is

unfortunately the library who provided

me with this scanned copy had some

serious copyright restrictions so I

hired atranslator to replace theGerman

text withEnglish and then recreated a

page inPhotoshop but it doesn't matter

because it does not contain anything

even remotely relevant to this mystery

no Lisa host no spider misconceptionsno

nothinganything this is not it

i highly doubt this article exists

I mean I even click page toa google

search so you knowI've been thorough

after pacing back and forth and

questioning my own sanity for the better

part of the weekI began to wonder if

snopes had for whatever reason

intentionally provided incorrect

informationI then quickly found a

reddit post demonstrating how the name

Lisa bigoted hostis an anagram for this

is a big troll

unless we are to believe that this

perfect anagram is just a random

coincidenceit would mean thatsnopes

has written a meta article about the

made-up columnist who once wrote a

made-up article about people's

willingness to accept false claims as

the truth in order to expose people's

willingness to accept false claims as

the truth a bit convoluted sure but oh

the day succeed almost every mention of

this urban legendsince has been

accompanied by this supposed to origin

story which is of course presented as

the truth when in actuality itmay be as

mythical esta myth it is attempting to

dispel all of these hundreds or even

thousands of authors has fallen for the

exact same trap as none of them could be

bothered to validate a simple citation

and gladly lifted information they

assumed to be accurate and it's easy to

see why they would make that assumption

because if you search for this urban

legend todaythis is what you will find

Paige off the page of articles proudly

and unknowingly presenting a fake story

in order to disprove a fake storyi

should also mention that i contacted

snopes on multiple occasions in hopes

that they could shed some light on the

whole situation but like everyone else

before mei received nothing but an

automated reply but even if this

godforsaken article exist and the

anagram is just a random coincidence the

endless retelling of this story has been

toldunder the pretense thatELISA holst

article exists and not due to any prior

knowledge of its existence because the

fact still stands

no one has been able to find it yet

everyone writes as if they had

it's the most perfect example of

circular reportingI've ever come across