BY TINA L. SCOTT Oftentimes, a rumor is based on something that actually occurred and may have a nugget of truth as its basis, but somehow the information gets vastly distorted over time and as it is spread. Similar to the old game of telephone where kids sit in a circle and the first whispers something into the ear of the person sitting next to them and they then whisper it into the next person’s ear and so on, all the way around the circle, the message that gets back to the first person often becomes distorted by the time it arrives.
EDITORHow do rumors get started?
The more detailed or complex the story, and the more times the information is shared (i.e., the more kids in the circle), the greater the chance that the story will be entirely different by the time it comes “full circle.”
Sometimes a rumor begins when an event is misinterpreted, either innocently or more maliciously. Assumptions are made or people speculate out loud. Instead of asking or waiting for all the facts, they share their thoughts, ideas, or speculation, and others interpret that information as fact, when it hasn’t been verified and often couldn’t be further from the truth.
A neighbor’s car has the front fender all smashed up and someone speculates that she “had a few too many again and probably hit a guard rail” when, in fact, a deer ran into the side of her car as she was coming home from work.
People in the city lose power and a road is barricaded off and someone on Facebook reports a car hit an electric pole when, in fact, a transformer blew and there was no accident or car involved at all.
Occasionally, rumors are straight-up lies, fabricated by someone to make someone else look bad. They can be malicious and harmful, intent on deliberately damaging another person’s reputation, and that is their intent. Political ads quickly come to mind.
But at other times, rumors seem to originate out of thin air without any evidence to substantiate them. Who fabricated them, and when and where and why are a complete mystery.
Such is the case with recent rumors in the community that very recently a wolf (or more than one) was shot and killed west of Merrill. I’ve now heard multiple versions of this story - from a farmer killing a wolf that attacked his pigs - to a man shooting a wolf when a pack surrounded his dog or dogs and perhaps a dog was even killed by wolves. I’ve heard rumors about the DNR responding and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office responding and various versions of how that went down.
But here’s the thing … none of that is true.
I contacted multiple sources to try to verify any of the above information.
Individuals who were supposedly involved in the matter said it wasn’t them. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is unaware of any such incident, and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said they haven’t responded to any situations involving wolves this year either.
While some rumors are truly difficult to dispel, others can be set to rest fairly quickly and easily by going straight to the subject of the rumors and asking for the facts. As Joe Friday in Dragnet used to say, “All we want are the facts, ma’am.”
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