A bomb-rigged beach, a rum runner outpost, a mysterious blob and a secret underground military base. These are some of the urban legends that readers submitted in response to our recent Fact Check call.
We’ve started researching a few tales and even answered one, but we’d like your help with the rest.
Below, I’ve summarized a dozen urban legends that our readers submitted. Some sound plain silly, but hey, then they should be easy to prove false, right?
If you know anything that can help us get to the bottom of these claims, please share your thoughts by sending an email to me at keegan.kyle@voiceofsandiego.org. This list is by no means a comprehensive anthology of local urban legends, so if you notice one missing, please let me know.
12 Urban Legends:
• Rum runners once used the sea caves near Point Loma Nazarene University as a staging point to deliver booze. (The school, by the way, prohibits students from using or possessing alcohol. Students who violate this rule three times face expulsion.)
• The San Ysidro border crossing is the busiest in the world, not just in the United States.
• Downtown sidewalks once had small purple glass squares in them so light could flow into underground tunnels.
• The padres buried treasure in Presidio Park during the 1700s when their mission was attacked by Native Americans. The treasure remains buried somewhere in the park today.
• The entire Convention Center is actually floating on water.
• The University of California San Diego built secret tunnels during the 1960s to provide accessible routes for the National Guard in case of rioting.
• The center span of the Coronado Bay Bridge was designed to float in the event of a bombing.
• The military has placed explosives beneath the Coronado Bay Bridge so the Navy could blow it up and deny enemies access to the harbor.
• The military has also placed explosives beneath the Silver Strand beaches so that it could blow a new path out of the harbor for Navy ships if the Coronado Bay Bridge were destroyed.
• There used to be an unidentified petroleum-based build up underneath the city. It was called “the blob.”
• There are public restrooms underneath the Horton Plaza Fountain.
• There’s a secret underground military base under Point Loma. The entrance tunnels are visible to the public from a road, but no readers knew which road.
Please contact Keegan Kyle directly at keegan.kyle@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5668 and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/keegankyle.