Who can tell what's for real and what's "get real"? After all, according to the spooky flick Urban Legend, there never was a guy with an axe in the backseat, even though my boyfriend's best friend swears he knows someone that happened to.

On the other hand, college campuses have long been places of fright. No, not only Chemistry exam-type of fright, but the Ted Bundy kind. Take a stab at these two stories ... you may be surprised at the truth.

X-Files Legend?
They came from above. Fiercely intelligent, they are nearly impossible to escape. Although few victims have been taken, legend has it they always disappear the same way. Lured with English muffins, they are abducted from their natural environment. Then the tests begin ... poked and prodded, the abductees are measured and weighed. Afterward, some are released from their suffocating test environment. Others aren't so lucky. They are cut open, their internal organs thoroughly examined. Those few never return - all because they partook in the nooks and crannies of death.

The True Story
The students at the University of Connecticut at Hartford find the aforementioned activity of 'abducting' Mummichog fish very educational. The fish represent a crucial element of the salt marsh food chain and are actually in more danger from the gasoline and sewage that flow into their environment than from their 'abductors.'

Hartford students capture the fish in minnow traps baited with English muffins in order to determine the effect of pollution on them and, consequently, the whole salt marsh. They observe the Mummichogs' weight, length, and width. Additionally, some of the fish's livers are examined for size and glycogen content. Helping hand or not, the strange abduction into "outer space" probably makes for quite a fish story under the water's surface.

Deep-Water Legend?
Under cover of darkness and waning moon, 10 college students glide slowly onto the unusually deep Ballston Lake. Their intention? To plunder its Titanic-like secrets along the dead, unoxygenated bottom. Using sonar, the lonely sound-pulses bounce off objects lying in the stagnant sediment below. Then the students eagerly examine the fuzzy picture reflected from the 110-foot deep, southern part of the lake. They begin to see a car, possibly an old Model-T Ford - perhaps the very same car that local legend claims contains a diamond. No, not a blue, heart-shaped one, but a ring that was placed in the glove box before a couple went for a swim and their car rolled into the lake.

The True Story
Under the supervision of Professor John Garver, students at Union College, Schenectady, NJ, venture to Ballston Lake at night to scan its bottom for artifacts. Right now they only theorize that the car found is a Model-T, says Garver. Whether or not it is the legendary diamond-ring-Ford remains to be seen, however. Meanwhile, the students are getting a titanic education. They are required to write a thesis on their findings, quite advanced for undergraduate coursework. After completing their degrees, they'll be able to "laugh at grad school," jokes Garver.

Ballston Lake gets a lot of action from other classes, too. It's examined for the curious lack of oxygen on the bottom, tested for pollution, and studied for its fish. The students in Garver's class love getting out of the classroom and mapping artifacts, he says. And, with the long tradition of car ice races, there are plenty of artifacts to examine. Who knows what they'll find next?

A Little Spooky ... But Sentimental
The women, somberly dressed in flowing white gowns, assemble into two straight lines within the dimly lit chapel. The only illumination comes from the candles they ceremoniously hold in their hands. Thus marks Proclamation Night at Westhampton College, the women's college at the University of Richmond, VA.

During the ceremony, the ghostly clad freshman women are formally received into the college by the seniors through the symbolic presentation of the freshman class banner and signing of the Westhampton alma mater. It is also on this night that the freshmen write letters to themselves that are sealed until their senior year's Proclamation Night. While the freshmen are penning their personal notes, the senior women read the letters they themselves wrote four years earlier.

This decades-old tradition signifies the beginning of the freshman women's journey toward a new and exciting educational venture. It's also a chance for seniors to celebrate how far they've come on their college trek.

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