Science Versus Myth
Are vampires real? What is an out-of-body experience? Are crop circles proof that aliens exist? HowStuffWorks explores what is real and what is urban legend with this collection of Science Versus Myth articles.
Top 10 Ghost Tours
Top 10 Hotels That Will Scare the Daylights Out of You
What's So Scary About The Winchester House Story?
The Meaning and Significance of Angel Number 555
Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of These Debunked Conspiracy Theories
Is suicide more common around holidays?
Angel Number 2121: Unlocking the Power of Harmony and Self-Driven Action
The Power of Angel Number 515: Unlocking Your Intuition and Manifesting Your Dreams
Understanding the Profound Meaning of Angel Number 909
Goatman Legends of Ancient Greece and Modern America
Is the Bondo Ape a Cryptid or a Specially Adapted Chimpanzee?
The Yeti, aka Abominable Snowman: A Classic Cryptid
What's Going on With Detroit's Mysterious Zug Island?
10 Unidentified Sounds That Scientists Are Seriously Looking Into
10 Famous Paranormal Hoaxes
What If Cows Didn't Exist?
What If Earth's Magnetic Field Flipped?
What If Humans Could Breathe Underwater?
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If you've ever been to a slumber party, you know the drill. Place your fingers under someone's body, chant "Light as a feather ... stiff as a board ..."and they'll magically rise up into the air. Is this old trick a true ghostly phenomenon?
By Debra Ronca
Walking down a city sidewalk, you protect your valuables and weave through crowds. Should you also beware of falling pennies?
Chicago has long been known as "The Windy City." It's a pretty cool nickname, but does it live up to it?
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Rainy, dreary, Seattle, right? Everyone says it's the rainiest city in the United States. However, Seattleites are keeping a secret from you. Find out if their rainy reputation is real — or if the rumor's all wet.
Summertime fashion — light in weight and light in color. Are these pastel colors a designer's choice? Or do light colors actually keep you cooler, as some say? Read to find out if you should ditch the goth wardrobe this summer.
Of all the cosmetic problems to worry about waking up to — dark under-eye circles, a blemish on your nose, new stubble on your chin — a headful of white hair ranks pretty low on your list. Should you be more concerned?
Star jelly sounds like it could be some sort of cosmic spread for toast -- complete with a flashy label boasting, "Now with 50 percent more universe!" Unfortunately, the real story of star jelly is far less tasty -- and far more terrestrial.
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The "angel hair phenomenon" sounds like a best-selling pasta dish from your local Italian restaurant. Or maybe we're just hungry. But if this phenomenon isn't related to tasty cuisine, what's it all about -- and are angels actually involved?
The Zone of Silence is Mexico's own Bermuda Triangle, a place where radio signals don't work and an alien might just turn up. But what is the real story behind it?
Ancient caves! Mysterious stones! Tiny little beings with strange heads! Sounds like the plot of an Indiana Jones movie, doesn't it? The legend of the Dropa stones has persisted for over half a century now, but is any of it actually true?
Humans riding dinosaurs: Sounds like a kid's dream come true! History tells us this couldn't possibly have happened, but the Ica stones say otherwise. So is there any truth to these allegedly ancient carvings, or are they just an elaborate hoax?
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Whether in "King Kong," "Journey to the Center of the Earth" or "The Lost World," humankind has long held out hope of discovering a secret land filled with prehistoric beasts. But is that even possible? Are dinosaurs still alive?
Fans of the Super Mario Bros. series know that enemy fish can attack from above. And fans of the film "Magnolia" know that sometimes frogs do rain from the sky. But this is purely the realm of pop culture. Things like this don't really happen, right?
Singing monuments sounds like the premise of an enchanted Broadway musical -- or a scene straight out of "A Night at the Museum." So did the Colossi of Memnon actually sing at one time? And if so, why don't they sing anymore? Stage fright?
Is the world really connected by an intricate, invisible web of knowledge-expanding energy waves? Sure, it's called the Internet -- and you're channeling it right now! Oh, you were asking about the ley lines? We've got an answer for that too.
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Long before crop circles captured the world's imagination, a Peruvian culture called the Nazca went about creating a series of intricate lines -- sometimes in the shapes of animals -- on the desert floor. But how'd they do it -- and why?
Obviously, if we had more evidence of the existence of ghosts, we wouldn't all spend so much time debating the matter. Believers in the supernatural, however, are convinced a substance called "ectoplasm" proves ghosts are real -- but are they right?
When reeling off dubious facts (like lemmings plunging off cliffs en masse), there's no better retort to a skeptical audience than calmly explaining that it's not just true — it's science...right?
By Kate Kershner & Sascha Bos
CERN is a European research organization dedicated to the study of very tiny particles. Could they discover time travel?
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Decapitation is a surefire way to deliver a quick and painless death, right? In actuality, an increasingly large body of historical and scientific evidence suggests that beheading doesn't, in fact, deliver instant death.
By Josh Clark
How great would it be to reconcile general relativity with quantum theory and truly have a theory of everything? That's what a band of theoretical physicists and their trusty hypothetical strings have been working on for decades.
By Robert Lamb
Once upon a time, our universe was born. Was it all just luck that it evolved in a manner compatible with life? Or are such "coincidences" all in a day's work for a universe?
By Robert Lamb
You know the drill: You plunge into darkness and then see a bright light. An angelic figure speaks to you. Why are people's near-death experiences so similar?
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Let's assume that it's possible to create a complete loop in time travel -- that time travelers could travel into the past and then return to the future (or vice versa). What could we do with our time machine, and how would time travel affect our lives?
Wood, grass and food scraps undergo a process known as biodegradation when they're buried. They're transformed by bacteria in the soil into other useful compounds, but those same bacteria typically turn up their noses at plastic. Luckily, that's not the end of the story.