Almost Famous?
Posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 4:40 PM by DaveIt’s been a weird few days.
Just last week I received an email from a friend, warning of “Brown Recluse Spiders” in Bermuda. The email recounted the tale of a man bitten by one of these spiders, and included photos. Within about 2 minutes I sent an email back telling my friend that it was OK, this was a hoax that had been circulating for the past couple of years (see Brown Recluse Link at Snopes.com for the photos) and explained the basics and gave him the link to Snopes.
Unfortunately, the local newspaper “The Royal Gazette” (The Royal Gazette online) also recieved the original email, took it at face value, and published a warning on the front page of Friday’s newspaper which included one of the photos from the hoax. The local TV channel ZBM also started reporting this, and my friend heard it. It turns out he knows the broadcaster (Bermuda is a small place after all) so he called him up to tell him it was a hoax, and forwarded on my email to him.
Sadly, I wasn’t watching the news on Friday night when they read out my email to my friend (with both names removed) debunking the story, and they provided the link to snopes! How funny is that!?
As of today it now appears that there was a man in Bermuda bitten by a spider at some point in the last few weeks, and when his wife went online to find out more information about his injury she found (and fell for) the hoax information and then panicked.
At this point, it seems there’s still no evidence of Brown Recluse Spiders in Bermuda.
I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for them…..along with Giant Squid! 
