I recently received a forwarded e-mail containing a picture and message from the supposed parents of a missing girl. The girls name was Penny Brown and message urged parents to forward it to as many people as possible. Being a parent, anything about a child going missing is of great concern to me. However, I decided to do web search of the name and found out that this e-mail is an urban legend. This e-mail has been circulating around since 2001 and there are several web sites that warn that this is an urban legend. I have decided not to use the photo becuase I do not know the identity of the child in the photograph.
As a special caution to anyone that does receive a forwarded message, do a little research. This is the way that urban legends begin and continue to grow and develop. I have heard of quite a few myself and people have also come up to me telling these things as if they were fact.
Child abduction is a serious issue and the fact that someone would have started an urban legend about a missing child is disgusting and repulsive.
For more information and sites that document this urban legend.:
- http://www.teamamberalert.net/penny_brown.html
- http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blmiss7.htm
- http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/pennybrown.html
For official information on Missing Children
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