After being helped out when coming up short when making a purchase, a presumed terrorist warns his benefactor not to drink Coca-Cola [or Pepsi in some versions] after a certain date.

See more versions of this story than you can shake a stick at here.

No. It is an urban legend.

Why is it an urban legend? Given the wide variation in the stories, all bear the Number 1 Warning Sign of an Urban Legend [this really happened to a cousin of a friend or uncle of wife's best friend], the 'Friend of a Friend' (FOAF) seal of UL approval.

It also resembles another earlier warning from another 'kind terrorist' that malls would be attacked on Halloween.

Why are the stories not true?

If all the stories where true, the law enforcement officials would not have any trouble rounding up a gang of such blabbermouth terrorists. And given the heightened vigilance that all Americans have been exhorted to since September 11th, it's unlikely that any terrorist would risk himself in divulging plans of attacks.

It's worth remembering that despite the biggest investigation in history, relatively little is known about how the 9/11 conspirators did before the fateful attacks:

Those answers remain elusive, in large part because the Sept. 11 plotters were so smart and careful after arriving in the U.S., and hid their plot so exquisitely well.

Although they rented apartments and cars and made plane reservations in their own names, no doubt hoping to be remembered by posterity, they made no videotapes for posthumous viewing. They apparently kept no diaries. Of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of e-mails send and received by the hijackers from public Internet terminals, none is known to have been recovered.

With one glaring exception - Al-Shehhi's alleged remark to a Hamburg librarian that he planned to attack the World Trade Center and that "there will be thousands of dead" - they are not known to have taken any outsiders into their confidence.

John Crewdon and Cam Simpson
"Real clues to plot have been elusive"
Chicago Tribune, 9/5/2002

Coca-Cola issued the following statement:

These rumors are absolutely false and are causing needless worry. The Coca-Cola Company has an uncompromising commitment to product safety, and our products are produced and distributed through secure facilities. We use a number of processes to assure the safety and quality of the water and ingredients used to make products of The Coca-Cola Company. To ensure the effectiveness of our safeguards, we do not discuss the details of these processes.

We always take reports of this nature seriously. You should know that investigations to date, conducted by Federal and local officials, as well as The Coca-Cola Company, have concluded that these rumors have no merit.

In spite of a number of email versions of this legend, it is circulating primarily by word of mouth. This accounts for the wide variation in details in the stories (The terrorist was a man, no, it was a woman. It took place in a McDonald's, a drug store, a school, a gas station, an International House of Pancakes. Don't drink Coca-Cola products, no, Pepsi products. Don't drink them after August 1, August 28, September 1, September 6 or September 11): people often confuse details and embellish stories.

It would be easy to draw a direct correlation between the popularity of the 'kind terrorist' legend and the level of American fear of further terrorist attacks. The Urban Legend Zeitgeist thinks the connection might not be so direct.

It's obvious to think of the stories as only intended to convey information: a warning of a coming attack. They are, but the information in urban legends is often secondary to the social role that they play.

Urban legends are often used to establish a social bond between the teller and the listener. The teller is not only trying to convey information ('terrorist are going to poison Coca-Cola') but also the teller is looking out for the listener ('you're part of my tribe, I'm concerned about your safety').

You can see this at work in email versions of the stories. They are often prefaced with comments like "More than likely it's nothing, but I felt the safe thing to do is to pass on the information" or "better safe than sorry."

In such a situation, the veracity of the story is not as important as the social contract. The teller may feel free to embellish the story [it happened in the a nearby town, it was reported by a different friend of a trusted friend] to dramatize it and emphasize the importance of the implied bond.

• Rumor: Grocery stock person warns consumers not to buy Coca-Cola after June 1, 2002 from Coca-Cola
• Urban Legend Zeitgeist: Mall Attack on Halloween
• Rumors about Coke threat debunked as urban legend from the Waco Tribune-Herald
• Germans say hijacker tipped hand in 2000 from the Arizona Republic
• Moroccan 'aided 11 Sept attacks' from the BBC
• Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in Utah from Buzzle.com
• Soda Pop Terrorist Warning from About.com
• Not the Real Thing from Snopes.com

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