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Claim: Woman who performs kindness for a stranger is rewarded by his telling her to avoid a certain place on a certain day.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]
Origins: Tales about grateful Arabs who rewarded with information about upcoming terrorist attacks those who returned dropped wallets or helped them pay for small purchases in convenience stores first appeared in the final week of September 2001. Since then, these rumors have reappeared at various times in various forms, including one that specifically warned against the drinking of Coca-Cola after a certain date (which, of course, changed from telling to telling). In December 2006, a UK-based outbreak of the legend The Birmingham referred to in the first warning is in the United Kingdom and is not any of the many cities of same name in the U.S.A. The rumor also exists offline in versions that variously name a number of United Kingdom towns as the one the grateful terrorist cautioned the kindly woman against visiting. Depending on where the rumor is encountered, Coventry, Birmingham, Tamworth, Milton Keynes, and Chester are named as the definitive targets. (Such scares do tend to localize, so someone living in the Birmingham area will likely hear a version that asserts great harm is about to befall Birmingham, as opposed to any of the other towns commonly featured in the whisper.) The story always comes from a friend who says he heard it second or third-hand. In true urban lore fashion, the woman who had the encounter with the terrorist is never named; only her experience is described. Likewise, the venue for the instigating act changes from telling to telling. The man is shopping at a cheap goods store. Or he's picking up things at Harrod's. Or he comes up short at a gas (petrol) station. Or he's at the local McDonalds. Sometimes he's an Arab, and sometimes he's Irish. When Irish, the presumption is that he and his group will be placing a bomb. When Arab, generally no presumption of a specific act of terror is made; that part remains unstated although the listener judges something awful will happen on the appointed day. In October 2001 the West Midlands Police issued a statement about the rumor, which read (in part):
This rumour, with an implied security threat, bears all the hallmarks of a so-called "urban myth," having no apparent basis in fact, nor any evidence to support it. West Midlands Police Chief Constable,
Although this particular rumor about Birmingham and In 2000, a specific version of this legend attached itself to the Trafford Centre in the U.K., a famous shopping location. According to that tale, a woman who helped a young man pay for his meal at Burger King was rewarded with the advice to avoid that shopping center during the month of March. That bit of advice was delivered in a light Irish accent. Some might view the "warning stranger" legend as a sinister form of the "benevolent millionaire" tale in which a small kindness performed for someone unknown to the helpful one pulls in a large reward, but it is likely more closely related to a hoary supernatural tale about kindness repaid with useful intelligence:
[Jacobson, 1948]
Once again, a kindly soul helps someone unknown to him then waves off the offer of repayment (money to replace the cash given freely in the lurking terrorist version, and reimbursement for the gas expended in the prophesying passenger tale). This refusal prompts the assisted one to offer up something of far greater value: specific knowledge. The lurking terrorist warns about carnage to come on a particular day in a particular place, and the prophesying passenger makes two pronouncements, one of good news on the way and the other a confirmatory support to the first in the form of a wildly improbable prediction that subsequently comes true. The two legends thus share a telling commonality.
In the wake of the anxiety rumors that swept the nation immediately after Pearl Harbor came a pipe-dream rumor which was undoubtedly the most popular of all: the weird tale of the man who picked up a strange woman in his car. Arriving at her destination, his passenger allegedly offered to pay the man for the gas he had used. But the man refused to accept the money, so the woman offered to tell his fortune. And, as the rumor went, mysteriously she told him, "There will be a dead body in your car before you get home, and Hitler will be dead in six months." Supposedly, then, on the way home the man had seen a serious automobile wreck and had taken one of the victims into his car to rush him to the hospital. But the injured person died Although this pipe dream sounds foolish, it nevertheless spread throughout the country rapidly. It appeared in widely circulated gossip columns, and a lot of Americans took it seriously. Yet this same rumor, in the setting of the period, to be sure, had appeared in every military conflict since the Napoleonic Wars. And it has been said that the rumor probably goes back into the Middle Ages.1 Rumors about terrorists who tip their hands to members of the general public aren't grounded in reality — they are expressions of fear about events that might unfold told in story form. Through them, voice is given to a latent sense of inevitability that more harm is to come. In real life, terrorists do not share their plans with those who might or might not end up caught in them because the potential cost of a warning — the disruption of their schemes — is deemed far too high. Terrorists view those who die as collateral damage, and although they may regret a particular death more than another, the potential for that regret does not sway them, not even to the point of issuing a small caution to an especially favored innocent. There is thus no kindly woman who helped a stranger pay for his purchases, no compassionate terrorist who unbent enough to warn the helpful one away from harm's way — all there is is fear. Barbara "judged dread" Mikkelson Last updated: 15 December 2006 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by snopes.com. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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